
Qass f 1< f)2>\ 



Heroes of the Nations 

A Series of Biographical Studies 
presenting the lives and work 
of certain representative his- 
torical characters, about whom 
have gathered the traditions 
of the nations to which they 
belong, and who have, in the 
majority of instances, been 
accepted as types of the sev- 
eral national ideals. 



FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME 



/ 



36? Fi' 



THE WEST INDIES 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



THE WEST INDIES 

A HISTORY OF THE ISLANDS OF THE WEST INDIAN 

ARCHIPELAGO, TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT 

OF THEIR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 

NATURAL RESOURCES, AND 

PRESENT CONDITION 



BY 



AMOS KIDDER FISKE, A.M. 

I) 

AUTHOR OF "the JEWISH SCRIPTURES," " THE MYTHS OF 
ISRAEL," ETC. 



NEW YORK 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN 
1911 






Copyright, iSg^ 

BY 

AMOS KIDDER FISKE 



"^y^ 



.-p^ ^ 



Ube ftnict;erboci{er press, Dew ]t?orf: 




PREFACE 



THE events of the past year have begotten, at 
least in the United States, a new and keener 
interest, not only in Cuba and Puerto Rico, but in all 
of that great group of American islands which still re- 
main so largely under European control. They are 
looked upon and thought about from a new point of 
view, in consequence of the sudden facing of the 
nation in a new direction ; and, in order to satisfy 
the freshly awakened interest, information about 
them needs to be presented with an arrangement 
and perspective, and in a proportion as to detail, 
adapted to a changed situation. 

Apart from this consideration of a novel require- 
ment, in all the literature about the West Indies that 
has appeared in the past it is hard to find a system- 
atic account, good even for its time, of all the islands 
regarded as a whole and in their relation to each 
other. It is not too much to say that such an ac- 
count, at once full and compact, authoritative and 
popular, and calculated to give a satisfactory view 
of the whole subject, does not exist. The older his- 
tories, like Coke's, Southey's, and Edwards's, are not 
only out of date, but were written from an English 



IV PREFACE I 

point of view, giving prominence to British colonial 
interests, and containing details of ^little moment 
now. Some later works, like Eden's West Indies, 
have a similar fault of disproportion with meagre- 
ness of detail in everything not English. The later 
Spanish works relate wholly to the Spanish colonies, 
** now no more." 

There are many books relating to one island or 
group of islands, or to some special interest or phase 
of life in the archipelago, and many that are mere 
sketches of the observations, often very interesting, 
of travellers seeking novelty and adventure. Books 
on Cuba are numerous, but most of those of recent 
date treat it with special reference to the struggle 
for independence, and furnish little systematic in- 
formation about its history, physical aspects, and 
permanent conditions. This, however, cannot be 
said of the useful little volume, TJie Island of Cuba, 
by Rowan and Ramsay, though it gives Httle 
attention to any but recent history. The earlier 
books, like Hazard's Cuba with ^en and Pencil, and 
Gallenga's Pearl of the Antilles, which aim to furnish 
more or less systematic information, though not very 
old, seem now rather remote; and the sketches of 
Dana, Ballou, Carleton, and others are mainly nar- 
ratives of personal observation. 

Jamaica is treated in a full and, for their day, an 
interesting manner in 'W^x'^m ?, History of the British 
Colonies, Bryan Edwards's British Colo7ties iii the 
West Indies, and Sir S. D. Scott's To Jamaica and' 
Back, to say nothing of Michael Scott's fascinating 
pictures in Tom Cringle' s Log ; but there is more of 



PRE FA CE V 

Jamaica in these special works than is wanted in a 
general view of the West Indies, and none of them 
presents the real latter-day aspect of the subject. 
Santo Domingo and Haiti have received much atten- 
tion in the past on account of the interesting phases 
of life and political experience there, and Hazard's 
Santo Domingo Past and Present and Keim's Life in 
Saiito Domingo are calculated to gratify the larger 
curiosity on that subject, while Sir Spenser St. John 
furnishes a graphic, if rather dark, picture in his 
Hayii, or The Black Republic, the fruit of a long resi- 
dence amid the scenes described. If a people which 
has no history or whose annals are brief is necessarily 
happy, our newly acquired subjects in Puerto Rico 
ought to be cheerful and contented. Probably more 
has been written in English about that island in the 
last eight months than in a century before, and yet 
only meagre information is to be gleaned from the 
mass. Puerto Rico is yet to be " developed " in a 
literary as well as a material sense. Its history is 
really scanty, and its present condition and future 
possibilities are yet to be studied with care. 

The Bahamas and the Caribbees have a peculiar 
charm for the vacation voyager, and the dehght one 
has in going from a northern winter into the genial 
glow of the tropics at their best, has led many 
writers to describe the scenery and the life of this 
long and fascinating range of islands. Drysdale's 
I?i Sunny Lands and Ives's Lsles of Summer give 
especially cheerful pictures of the Bahamas, while 
McKinnen's Description of the Bahama Lslands pre- 
sents a more sedate view. No one can think of the 



VI PREFA CE 

Lesser Antilles " without having scenes from 
Charles Kingsley's At Last come vividly to his 
mind, but Kingsley only caught glimpses of the 
charm from St. Thomas to Grenada, and spent his 
real Christmas vacation in Trinidad, which he makes 
others see even as he saw it. Froude's observations 
were confined mainly to Barbados, Trinidad, and 
Jamaica; and though in his English in the West 
Indies he was chiefly concerned with the problem of 
government in the British colonies, he gives some 
lively views of places and people. Of those whose 
chief purpose has been to describe what they saw on 
vacation trips are W. A. Baton in his Down the 
Islands and C. A. Stoddard in Cruising among the 
Caribbees. Lafcadio Hearn's Two Years in the French 
West Indies, as the title implies, is more than the 
narrative of a hasty trip, and has graphic delinea- 
tions of life and character, mostly in Martinique. 
F. A. Ober's Camps in the Caribbees has the attrac- 
tion of scientific observation and study combined 
with that of narratives of adventure and descriptions 
of novel scenes. Regarding the historical aspects of 
the subject, the same writer's /;/ the Wake of Colum- 
bus is not to be forgotten, for it presents many de- 
tails of the era of discovery in a new and interesting 
light, as the result of personally tracing the course 
of the discoverer in his voyaging and his landings. 

The present writer can hardly acknowledge his 
indebtedness to any one authority, except to state 
that with reference to the physical characteristics of 
the islands and the surrounding waters and circum- 
ambient air, he has relied largely upon the chapters 



PREFA CE Vii 

relating to the West Indies in Elisee Reclus's mon- 
umental work, The Earth and its Inhabitants, and 
his Physical Geography. For historical information 
he has gathered from a great variety of sources ; for 
general description he has accepted aid from the ob- 
servation of many trustworthy witnesses, and for 
facts and statistics he has sought^ the latest and 
most authentic statements, endeavouring to balance 
them when they differed by the exercise of what 
he may modestly consider a trained judgment. His 
purpose has been to compress within the compass 
of one moderate volume, and yet to present with 
adequate form and colour and in a popular style, 
the information about the West Indies— their his- 
tory and physical aspects, their natural resources 
and material condition, their political relations and 
apparent destiny— which would meet the needs of 
that numerous but undefinable person, the " general 
reader." He is cognisant of many omissions and 
conscious of manifold defects, and he may have 
fallen into errors and inaccuracies; but the results 
of his conscientious effort are submitted in the hope 
that they will prove enlightening as well as inter- 
esting, and will at least not be misleading. 

A. K. F. 

New York, January, 1899. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS 

n. ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 

III. BEFORE THE " DISCOVERY " 

IV. THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 
V. SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT . 

VI. ROVING TRADERS, PRIVATEERS, AND PIRATES 

VII. ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH COLONISERS 

VIII. BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 

IX. FIGHTING FOR POSSESSION . . . . 

X. WEST INDIAN SLAVERY . . . . 

XI. THE BAHAMAS OR LUCAYAN ISLANDS . 

XII. THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA . 

XIII. HISTORY AND SPANISH GOVERNMENT OF 

CUBA ....... 

XIV. PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA . 
XV. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN CUBA 

XVI. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA 
XVII. THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPEND- 
ENCE 

XVIII. NATURAL ASPECTS AND RESOURCES OF 
JAMAICA ...... 

XIX. HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF JA- 
MAICA ....... 

XX. THE ISLAND OF HAITI . . . . 

ix 



PAGE 

I 

13 
24 

35 
51 
63 
71 
81 
92 
103 

128 

141 

151 
163 

172 

182 

199 

209 
225 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

XXI. THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 
XXII. THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 

XXIII. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PUERTO 

RICO ..... 

XXIV. PUERTO RICO IN SPANISH HANDS . 
XXV. PORTS AND TOWNS OF PUERTO RICO 

XXVI. GENERAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO 
XXVII. PUERTO RICO IN AMERICAN HANDS 
XXVIII. LESSER ANTILLES, CARIBBEES, WIND 
WARD, LEEWARD 
XXIX. THE VIRGINS AND THE DANISH ISLANDS 
XXX. ANGUILLA, ST. MARTIN, ST. BARTHOLO 

MEW, BARBUDA, ANTIGUA 
XXXI. SABA, ST. EUSTATIUS, ST. CHRISTOPHER 
NEVIS, MONTSERRAT 
XXXII. GUADELOUPE 

XXXIII. DOMINICA .... 

XXXIV. MARTINIQUE ... 
XXXV. ST. LUCIA AND ST. VINCENT . 

XXXVI. THE GRENADINES AND GRENADA 

XXXVII. BARBADOS .... 

XXXVIII. TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 

XXXIX. OFF THE VENEZUELA COAST . 

XL. THE WEST INDIAN ENIGMA 



PAGE 

266 

273 

278 
284 

287 
293 

302 

310 
318 
325 
330 

348 

355 
367 

389 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CHARLOTTE AMALIA, SAINT 

THOMAS . . . . . , Frontispiece 

COLUMBUS DISCOVERING THE VARIATION OF THE 
COMPASS ....... 

From De Lorgue's " Columbus:' 
DISCOVERY OF HISPANIOLA .... 

From Herreras ''History of the West Indies:' 
PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS .... 

From the painting by Sir Antonio Mora. 
MAP OF CUBA ...... 

THE BUCCANEERS' FORT AT THE MOUTH OF THE 



ALMENDARES RIVER, CUBA 
HAVANA, CUBA, FROM ACROSS THE BAY 
THE PRADO AND INDIAN STATUE, HAVANA, CUBA 
OLD ARCH OF THE JUSUIT COLLEGE, HAVANA, CUBA 
THE PLAZA, CIENFUEGOS, CUBA . 
. MORRO CASTLE, SANTIAGO DE CUBA 
COURTYARD OF CUBAN HOUSE 
NATIVE CANDY SELLER, HAVANA, CUBA 
ON THE ROAD TQ CASTLETON, JAMAICA 
AT THE FOUNTAIN, JAMAICA 
KINGSTON AND HARBOR, JAMAICA 
THE OLD ASSEMBLY ROOMS, SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA 
ISLAND OF HAITI (sOUTH SIDe) . . . . 

xi 



36 
42 

52 
128 



142 
152 

158 

160 

164 

170 

204 

210 

220 

222 - 

228 



Xll 



ILL US TRA TIONS 



ISLAND OF HAITI (nORTH SIDe) . 

PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI .... 

MAP OF JAMAICA, HAITI, AND PUERTO RICO AND 

THE CARIBBEAN ISLANDS .... 
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO .... 

OLD GATEWAY, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO 
CHARLOTTE AMALIA, SAINT THOMAS, FROM BLACK 

beard's castle 

BASSE TERRE, SAINT CHRISTOPHER 

NEVIS ISLAND ...... 

BASSE-TERRE, GAUDELOUPE .... 

FORT-DE-FRANCE, MARTINIQUE . . . 

STATUE OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, FORT-DE 

FRANCE, MARTINIQUE .... 

HOUSE IN WHICH THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE WAS 

BORN, MARTINIQUE 

THE PITONS, SAINT LUCIA .... 
KINGSTOWN, SAINT VINCENT 

SAINT George's and bay, Grenada . 

TRAFALGAR SQUARE, BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS 
PORT-OF-SPAIN, TRINIDAD .... 
MAP OF THE WEST INDIES . . 



228 
248 

274 
276 

294 

316 
322 

334 

346 
354 
364 
382^ 

396 



THE WEST INDIES 




THE WEST INDIES 



CHAPTER I 

THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS 

IF Columbus had not made a hugt mistake in 
underestimating the size of the globe and in 
supposing that he had reached the Indies when he 
sighted land on that fortunate Friday, October 12, 
1492 ; and if he had left to others the naming of the 
newly discovered domain, after its extent and situa- 
tion on the face of the earth had become known, 
the magnificent archipelago between the two con- 
tinents of America might have borne his own name. 
The name which has become imbedded in four cen- 
turies of history is singularly inappropriate, but can 
hardly be displaced now. India was the land of the 
river Indus and of the race of Hindus, but the name 
had been variously applied, and extended to differ- 
ent lands about the Indian Ocean, including the 
islands of the sea; and, when Columbus sailed west- 
ward, the great " East " of traffic and adventure was 
known as " the Indies." 



2 THE WEST INDIES 

It was to reach that region for gathering worldly 
wealth and disseminating the " true faith," by a 
shorter route than the old one around the African 
cape, that Columbus sailed westward ; and when he 
came to land he supposed that he had attained his 
goal. Hence he called the native people * * Indians, ' ' 
and the lands which he visited he spoke of as ** the 
Indies." Cuba, whose southern coast he skirted for 
hundreds of miles without coming to the western 
limit, he believed to be part of that Cipango whose 
Grand Khan he had determined to convert to Christ- 
ianity. The Great Navigator died in his errors, 
and when, among later discoveries, the truth was 
found, his '* Indies " were called the " West Indies " 
to distinguish them from those of the East, instead 
of being called the Archipelago of Columbus as they 
might have been. So it happened that the word 
" Indian " was imposed not only upon the natives 
of the islands but upon the aborigines of the two 
American continents as well. 

This great archipelago is the barrier which divides 
from the Atlantic Ocean the two deep basins that 
constitute the American Mediterranean. But for 
this, the larger and deeper of these, the Caribbean 
Sea, would not exist as a separate expanse, and the 
Gulf of Mexico alone, inclosed by the peninsulas of 
Florida and Yucatan, would be divided from the 
ocean. . This vast island barrier sweeps in a double 
curve from the north-west, from about 30° north lati- 
tude, off the southern part of Florida, for 1800 
miles, to the very coast of South America, at lati- 
tude 10° north. 



THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS 3 

It will be well, as a preliminary to our study of 
this vast domain of islands, to have in mind an out- 
line map of its extent and of its main features as 
they exist to-day. Starting at the north, we have 
the great group of the Bahamas, beginning scarcely 
a hundred miles off Jupiter Inlet on the Florida 
coast, and running in a band approximately one 
hundred and fifty miles wide, to the south-east for 
about seven hundred and eighty miles. Their num- 
ber has been variously estimated, and if we include 
all the rocks and reefs that appear and disappear on 
the surface of the water, as the work of the coral 
builders grows and crumbles away, it is not always 
the same. Including every bit of land or of rock at 
any time visible, there are more than 2000, and of 
those which can fairly be called islands or islets 
there are nearly seven hundred, but only thirty-one 
are inhabited. The total area of the group is gen- 
erally stated at 5450 square miles, and the latest sta- 
tistics give the aggregate population as about 50,000. 

The northernmost island nearest the Florida coast 
is the Great Bahama, and to the east of that are the 
Little and Great Abaco. Next on the outer or 
north-eastern line is the narrow, crescent-shaped 
Eleuthera, and on the inner or south-western verge 
the triple island of Andros, the largest of the whole 
group, containing, indeed, nearly one third of all its 
dry land. Between these is the small but populous 
and important island of New Providence, containing 
Nassau, the capital of the British colony of the 
Bahamas. Proceeding again on the outer edge we 
have Cat and Watling, and on the other side, to the 



4 THE WEST INDIES 

south-west, Great Exuma and Long, with Rum Cay 
in the middle. The larger islands then fall into a 
single line, with numerous " Cays," or " Keys," on 
either side, and the principal ones in order are 
Crooked, Acklin, Mariguana, the Caicos, and the 
Turks, with Great and Little Inagua far off the line 
to the south toward the eastern end of Cuba. The 
water among these islands is relatively shallow, ex- 
cept where a deep chasm, called the " Tongue of the 
Ocean," runs in on the eastern side of Andros to- 
ward New Providence, but it deepens to looo fath- 
oms between the great submarine plateau on which 
they stand and the northern coast of Cuba. 

Before Columbus's time there were legends of a 
land far out in the Atlantic, called Antilla, or An- 
tiglia. Sometimes it was represented as one large 
island, sometimes as an archipelago, and its place 
was a shifting one on the ancient charts. The very 
year that Columbus reported his first discoveries in 
Spain (1493), Peter Martyr d'Anghiera spoke of 
these islands as the Antilles, and the name has been 
applied to a part of them ever since. As the Span- 
iards made no use of the Bahamas, except to kidnap, 
their inhabitants for slaves, the name did not attach 
to them. The four great islands, stretching from 
the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico eastward for 
more than 1300 miles, far beyond the last bank and 
shoal of the Bahamas, and forming the northern 
side of the Caribbean Sea, were called the Greater 
Antilles, while the lower curve of the archipelago, 
which forms the eastern barrier of that great basin, 
was called the Lesser Antilles. 



THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS 5 

The western end of Cuba, separated by a deep 
channel from the peninsula of Yucatan, half closes 
the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, and the island 
stretches eastward more than seven hundred miles, 
measured straight across the meridians, and nearly 
nine hundred following the curve of its axis. It 
has an area of about 48,000 square miles, which is 
substantially one half that of the whole archipelago, 
its mean width being about sixty miles. Before the 
ravages of the last insurrection its population was 
reckoned at 1,650,000. South of the eastern end 
of Cuba and about one hundred miles away is Ja- 
maica, third in size of the islands. Its length is one 
hundred and forty miles, and its maximum width 
fortynine. Its area is 4218 square miles, and its 
population 635,000, according to the latest statistics. 
The Cayman Islands, to the south of Cuba and west 
of Jamaica, belong geographically to the former and 
politically to the latter. The second in extent of all 
the islands is Haiti, or Santo Domingo, to the east of 
Cuba and separated from it by the Windward Pas- 
sage. It is four hundred and seven miles long, and 
has a maximum width of one hundred and sixty 
miles. Its area is 28,249 square miles, and its in- 
habitants number 1,610,000. Eastward, across the 
Mona Passage from Santo Domingo, is the island of 
Puerto Rico, last and smallest of the Greater Antil- 
les. It is about one hundred and eight miles long, 
and thirty-seven wide, contains an area of 3550 
square miles, and has over 806,000 inhabitants. 

The Bahamas and the Greater Antilles together, 
starting on either side of the lower end of Florida 



6 THE WEST INDIES 

with a breadth of six hundred miles, converge to a 
point like a wedge at the eastern end of Puerto Rico. 
Just beyond that point are the two small islands 
of Vieques (Crab) and Culebra (Snake), belonging 
to Puerto Rico, and then a group called the Vir- 
gins, which belongs geologically to the same system 
by submarine connection though classed with the 
Lesser Antilles. With a distinct and comparatively 
deep-water separation from the Virgins begins a 
double chain of islands, varying in size and form but 
tending to an oval, with the longer axis in Hne with 
the chain, which stretches in a graceful curve like a 
string of jewels in the glittering sea three hundred 
and seventy miles to Grenada. Then there is another 
deep and distinct separation from Barbados on the 
east and from Tobago and Trinidad on the south, 
which are also classed with the Lesser Antilles, 
though not belonging geographically to the same 
system. Barbados is strictly isolated, and Tobago 
and Trinidad belong by submarine connection to the 
South American continent. 

This long group or chain of islands forming the 
barrier between the Caribbean Sea and the open 
ocean was called by the Spaniards the Windward 
Islands, because they stood against the prevailing 
north-east trade-winds ; and in contradistinction, the 
group strung along the Venezuela coast, which in- 
cludes three now called " Dutch West Indies," was 
called the Leeward Islands. These latter, like To- 
bago and Trinidad, are projections of the submarine 
extension of South America. The English in their 
colonial system have misused the terms " Wind- 



THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS / 

ward " and ** Leeward," applying the. latter to the 
islands belonging to their sovereignty in the northern 
part of the Lesser Antilles, and the former to those 
in the southern part. The whole chain is some- 
times, and most appropriately, called the Caribbees, 
from the aboriginal inhabitants. 

Let us run rapidly down this long line, noting the 
principal islands on the way, to complete our mental 
map of the great American archipelago. It may be 
well to observe, in passing, the political connection 
of each island that comes under notice ; and to make 
that view complete we will recall that the Bahamas 
and Jamaica belong to Great Britain, that until the 
war of 1898 Cuba and Puerto Rico were colonies of 
Spain, and that the island of Haiti, or Santo Do- 
mingo, consists of the two independent republics of 
Haiti and Santo Domingo, the former occupying the 
western end of the island with an area of 10,204 
square miles and a population of about 1,000,000, 
and the latter comprising the central and eastern 
parts, with an area of 18,045 square miles and 610,- 
000 inhabitants. 

Coming back to the east of Puerto Rico, we regain 
the group of islands which Columbus called " The 
Virgins " because, it is said, they were first observed 
on St. Ursula's day, reminding him of the proces- 
sion of 11,000 maidens who shared the fate of the 
Virgin martyr, according to the legend. Santa 
Cruz is included with this group, though it lies off 
by itself toward the south, and by its submarine 
connection is rather an outpost of the great Carib- 
bean range. It has an area of seventy-four square 



8 THE WEST INDIES 

miles and a population of 18,400, and belongs to 
Denmark, as do the two islands of St. Thomas and 
St. John, within the group. St. Thomas is commer- 
cially the most important, and has an area of twenty- 
three square miles and a population of 14,400. 
St. John, with an area of twenty-one square miles, 
has less than 1000 inhabitants. The other three 
Virgins which are more than rocks and reefs are 
Tortola, Virgin Gorda, and Anegada, and belong to 
Great Britain, being included in the colony of the 

Leeward Islands." Their combined area is fifty- 
eight square miles and their population about 5000. 

It is two hundred and fifty miles from the Virgin 
group to the nearest island of the chain which con- 
stitutes the Caribbees, or the Lesser Antilles proper, 
and the intervening passage attains a depth of 
1000 fathoms, making the physical severance com- 
plete. At the beginning of the long chain are the 
barren rocks, one called Sombrero, from its resem- 
blance to a conical grey hat floating on the water, 
and the others '' Dogs," from an appearance like a 
pack of hounds in full cry. These outlying rocks 
are appurtenant to the British island Anguilla, which 
has the considerable population of 12,000, with an 
area of thirty-five square miles. Next to it, on the 
south, is St. Martin, which is politically divided be- 
tween France and Holland in the proportion of 
twenty-one square miles of territory and 3500 inhabi- 
tants to the former and seventeen square miles and 
4500 people to the latter. To the south-east of this 
is the French island of St. Bartholomew, or St. Bart, 
as it is sometimes called, a crescent six miles long, 



THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS 9 

having an area of only eight square miles, and a 
population stated as over 2600. 

From this point the double character of the chain 
of islands becomes distinctly marked, and we have 
Barbuda on the easterly line, which is connected 
politically with Antigua directly south of it. They 
are British property, and Antigua is an island of 
some consequence in the Leeward colony, having a 
population of 35,000 within its area of one hundred 
and eight square miles. Barbuda, however, with an 
area more than half as great, has less than 1000 in- 
habitants. West of these, in the other strand of the 
chain, are the Dutch islands of Saba and St. Eusta- 
tius. To the south-east of these in the same line 
are St. Christopher, or St. Kitt's, and Nevis, and 
then Montserrat, all belonging to Great Britain. St. 
Kitt's has an area of sixty-five square miles and a 
population of 45,000, Nevis fifty square miles of ter- 
ritory and 12,000 inhabitants, and Montserrat thirty- 
two square miles and 10,000 people. 

This brings us to the French island of Guadeloupe, 
the largest in area of the Lesser Antilles, if we leave 
out the really South American island of Trinidad. 
It is in effect two islands separated by a narrow 
passage, and in it the strands of the chain come to- 
gether as in a double clasp. It has an area of six 
hundred square miles and a population of 135,600, 
and belonging with it politically and physically are 
the outlying islands of Desirade on the east, Marie 
Galante to the south-east, and the Saintes directly 
south of its western half. Desirade has but ten 
square miles of land and 1400 inhabitants, but Marie 



lO THE WEST INDIES 

Galante possesses an area of sixty-five square miles 
and a population of nearly 14,000. The little cluster 
of " Saintes," with its six square miles of surface, 
has 1900 people, consisting partly of the occupants 
of a military and naval station. 

Between Guadeloupe and the other important 
French island of Martinique, which lies a little east 
of south, nearly one hundred and fifty miles away, 
is Dominica, the largest of the British possessions in 
the Lesser Antilles, if again we omit Trinidad. 
With all those to the north of it belonging to Great 
Britain, it is a member of the Leeward colony. It 
has an area of two hundred and fifty square miles 
and a population of 30,000. The area of Martinique 
is four hundred square miles and its population over 
177,000, making it the most populous and important 
of the French West Indies, though not so large as 
Guadeloupe. 

The remaining islands of the Lesser Antilles be- 
long to Great Britain, and except Barbados and 
Trinidad, which have colonial governments of their 
own, constitute the colony of the " Windward 
Islands." Nearest to Martinique and directly south 
of it is St. Lucia, with an area of two hundred and 
forty-five square miles and a population of 45,000, 
and farther south and slightly westward from the 
direct line is St. Vincent, with one hundred and 
twenty-two square miles of surface and 48,000 peo- 
ple. Barbados lies by itself, one hundred miles to 
the east, and is surrounded by deep water. It is, in 
fact, an oceanic island, having no direct submarine 
connection with the chain of the Caribbees or with 



THE ARCHIPELAGO OF COLUMBUS II 

the southern continent except the deep bed of the 
Atlantic. Its area is one hundred and sixty-six 
square miles, and it has over 180,000 inhabitants. 
Grenada, a little to the west of south from St. Vin- 
cent and eighty miles away, with the long cluster 
of the Grenadines strung in the interval, properly 
terminates the Caribbean chain. Grenada and the 
Grenadines together have an area of one hundred 
and twenty square miles and 50,000 inhabitants. 

There is a stretch of deep water nearly a hundred 
miles wide between Grenada and Trinidad, of which 
Tobago is an outlying spur, coming to the surface 
like a gigantic spear-head off its north-eastern angle. 
As has already been said, these two islands have 
their submarine attachment with the terra firma of 
South America, close to which the larger one lies, 
but in the geographies they are part of the British 
West Indies. Tobago, which is politically attached 
to the Windward colony, has an area of one hundred 
and fourteen square miles and a population of 18,- 
400. Trinidad is a colony by itself, and in size 
comes next to Puerto Rico. Its area is 1754 square 
miles, and its population something over 200,000. 

We are compelled to take notice of the Dutch 
West Indies which He off the coast of Venezuela, 
though they pertain to the South American system 
as completely as the other members of the old Span- 
ish Leeward group, which now belong to Venezuela 
because nobody had succeeded in wresting them 
from Spain before her South American colonies 
gained their independence. She had, however, lost 
these three islands to the Dutch, and they are now 



12 THE WEST INDIES 

reckoned with the West Indies : Buen Aire, or Bo- 
naire, Curagao, and Aruba. Curagao is the largest 
and by far the most populous. Its area is two hun- 
dred and twenty square miles and its population 
26,000. Buen Aire, to the east of it, has two hun- 
dred and fourteen square miles of land and only 
about 5000 inhabitants, while Aruba, to the west, 
has nearly 8000 people within its area of sixty-six 
square miles. 

The statistics given above, drawn from the latest 
authentic sources, are probably not exact, for author- 
ities do not agree, and in no one authority do the 
details and the aggregates precisely correspond. 
But it is close to the truth to say that the entire 
land area of the West Indies is 95,000 square miles, 
of which nearly 85,000 is in the Greater Antilles, 
and of that about 48,000 in the island of Cuba alone. 
Of the rest more than half is contained in the Baha- 
mas, and the total area of the Lesser Antilles, in- 
cluding the Virgins and Trinidad and Tobago, and 
even the three Dutch islands of the Venezuelan 
coast, is a trifle less than 5000 square miles. The 
aggregate population of the archipelago is about 
5,750,000, of which more than 4, 500,000 is contained 
in the Greater Antilles. The Bahamas are sparsely 
peopled with a little over 50,000 souls, while the 
Lesser Antilles, including the outlying islands at 
either end of the long chain, contain about 1,200,000 
inhabitants. 



CHAPTER II 

ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 

IT is a familiar scientific fact that far back in the 
geological ages the crust of the earth was subject 
to upheaval and subsidence under the cooling pro- 
cess, which resulted in enormous changes of level in 
the surface remaining above water. The changes 
were greatest and lasted longest in the equatorial 
regions, where the globe's diameter transverse to its 
axis was greatest, and where the radiation of inter- 
nal heat was slowest. 

It is the latest scientific opinion that in those ages 
of " the dark backward and abysm of time," there 
was a great upheaval of land where this archipelago 
now is, which made it substantially, if not absolutely, 
a continuation of the continents, with broad plains 
upon the west, occupying most of the two basins of 
the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. There 
was an ocean connection with this land from the Pa- 
cific, over one or more of the depressions where now 
are the isthmuses of Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, and 
Panama, for the level of the western verge of the con- 
tinent was lower than it is at present. In later ages 

13 



14 THE WEST INDIES 

there was a tilting of this broad tract of the earth's 
crust, which lifted the side now occupied by the 
Cordilleras and sank the region of the Antilles to a 
level even lower than that of the present time. 
Then the plains, which may have had lakes in their 
central depressions, were converted into the basins 
of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the 
plateaus became the higher levels of the ocean floor, 
while the valleys between them, and the canons 
and ravines by which they were cleft, were chasms 
in the great deep, and only the mountain ridges and 
peaks were left above the expanse of waters as 
islands of varying form and extent. There is geo- 
logical evidence that after the great subsidence there 
was a gradual lifting, at least of a part of this tract, 
toward the older level. 

The plateau upon whose elevations and projections 
the Bahamas are built is a continuation of the North 
American continent, and stretches from Florida east- 
ward about three hundred miles, with a level no- 
where more than 3500 feet below the water surface 
until it reaches the outer edge, where a steep escarp- 
ment dips abruptly to the ocean depths of 12,000, 
feet and more. Upon this are banks and ridges 
and mounds, some of which come to the surface as 
islands, or near enough for the polyps to build their 
coral structures to the sunlight and make isles and 
reefs and calcareous rocks ; and here and there the 
plateau is seamed with valleys, some of which are 
old extensions of river beds of the continent, and is 
cut by deep fiords which were formed when the 
whole region was above the water-level. The high- 



ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 1 5 

est culmination now is about three hundred and 
eighty feet on Cat Island. 

The plateau of the Bahamas slopes off to the 
south into the Old Bahama Channel near the eastern 
end of Cuba to a depth of 6000 feet, and to more 
than 5000 north of the western part of the great 
island. The Florida Straits have scarcely a third of 
this depth, but they deepen and widen into the Gulf 
of Mexico, whose basin is some I2,CXX) feet in depth 
near the middle. The Yucatan Channel is about 
6000 feet deep off the western end of Cuba, but rises 
to higher levels toward the opposite peninsula, while 
the western section of the Caribbean Sea, sometimes 
called the Sea of Honduras, sinks to vast depths. 
There is a submarine ridge extending west from 
Cape Cruz on the south coast of Cuba which comes 
to the surface in the Cayman Islands. South of this 
is a pit in the bottom of the sea, 20,000 feet deep, 
measured from the surface of the water. Another 
broad ridge extends from Cape Tiburon, Haiti, 
through Jamaica and on toward Cape Gracias k Dios 
at the angle of Central America, where Honduras 
and Nicaragua meet, and from that ridge the bottom 
slopes gradually to the south-east into the Caribbean 
depths of 1 5,000 feet. The deepest place in all these 
waters, one of the deepest in all the vast ocean, is 
directly north of Puerto Rico, where soundings have 
gone down more than 27,000 feet. 

When this region was at its highest elevation the 
Bahama plateau connected with the North Ameri- 
can continent and the Greater Antilles, and the ex- 
panse of land continued to Mexico and Central 



1 6 THE WEST INDIES 

America, with deep intervening plains and a general 
south-westward slope. When the great subsidence 
came, it left the long range of the Greater Antilles, 
with their mountains and valleys and their outlying 
protuberances, above the surface of the submerging 
waters; and the tireless coral builders joined the 
forces of erosion and deposit to modify their outlines. 
The channels which cut the Greater Antilles apart, 
the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti 
and the Mona Passage between Santo Domingo and 
Puerto Rico, are from 20CX) to 30CX) feet deep, but 
the chasm which separates the Virgin group from 
the great chain of the Caribbees is 1000 fathoms 
deep. Even the bottom of this is believed to have 
been high above the surface in that remote era be- 
fore the submergence. 

The graceful curve of the Lesser Antilles, from the 
broad, deep passage just mentioned to that which 
divides it from Tobago and Trinidad, that is to say, 
the range from Sombrero and the Dogs to Grenada 
and the Grenadines, is really a double ridge of 
mountains on a submarine plateau, with peaks of 
varied form and size rising above the water. It forms 
the eastern barrier of the Caribbean Sea, the plateau 
sloping west into its deep basin and extending east 
a few miles and falling abruptly into the depths of 
the Atlantic. The peaks rise from a continuous bench 
some 3000 feet below the surface and are separated 
by valleys and chasms of varying width and depth, 
the deepest and widest cutting the range near the 
middle, just north of Martinique. The inner and 
most continuous line is of igneous origin, showing 



ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 1 7 

more and more evidences of recent volcanic action 
as we advance toward the equator, until craters are 
found that still rage and have broken out in a 
tremendous fury within the present century. The 
outer and less consecutive ridge is of calcareous 
formation, and much of it has been built up or 
enlarged through ages by the multitudinous and 
unceasing polyp, which does not really work but 
evermore grows and propagates, accumulating gen- 
erations of coral skeletons into masses of porous 
rock. 

There is a breaking of the ocean currents by this 
rocky barrier, which interferes with the regularity of 
the tides and produces effects peculiar to the region. 
The great equatorial current is produced by rapid 
evaporation under the tropic sun, which draws the 
cooler and denser water from north and south toward 
the equator. The greater velocity of the earth's 
surface in its rotation toward the east, as the diam- 
eter perpendicular to its axis increases, draws these 
two currents from north and south into a single 
broad stream tending west upon the central belt of 
the globe. As this strikes the South American 
coast it is deflected to the north-west and thrown 
upon the barrier of the Antilles. Far the greater 
part of its volume is again deflected north to be 
spread over the Atlantic • but vast quantities of the 
water make their way among the huge pillars and 
over the vast sills of the Caribbean barrier and rush 
on to be forced into the Gulf of Mexico by the 
swelling mass behind. As the movement is contin- 
uous, the invading force of equatorial water is turned 



1 8 THE WEST INDIES 

back by the resisting shores of the gulf and by the 
volume of cooler water that drains down from the 
Mississippi River, and is driven out again through 
the Florida Straits to form the Gulf Stream. 

This great river of the ocean is in a sense the 
product of the West Indian archipelago. Where 
the dark blue waters meet the muddy outflow of the 
Mississippi, which is cooler and denser, the line of 
demarcation is as clear and constant as if the differ- 
ent-coloured barrier were solid ; and in their flow 
through the straits they are concentrated into a 
stream of which the colder and heavier water of the 
ocean forms the bed and banks. Here it is thirty- 
seven miles wide and 1200 feet deep, and its volume 
is 2000 times as great as that which the Mississippi 
empties into the gulf as the drainage of a continent, 
while it moves with a more rapid flow than the 
greatest rivers of the earth. As it is joined through 
the passages north of Cuba by other parts of the 
equatorial current, and finds room to expand farther 
on, its volume is increased and its speed lessened, 
until the lowered temperature enables it to mingle 
with the waters of the North Atlantic. Its whole- 
some contribution of West Indian temperature to 
the climate of Northern Europe has had incalculable 
effects upon civilisation. 

The currents of the watery ocean and the disturb- 
ances to which they are subject are on or near the 
surface, for their causes, in variations of temperature 
and of consequent density and pressure, come from 
above. The currents of the atmospheric ocean and 
their disturbances are at or near its bottom, where 



ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS IQ 

it comes in contact with the land and water of the 
earth's surface, and they are liable to greater, more 
sudden, and more violent changes, as the fluid air is 
more susceptible to variations of temperature and of 
density than the liquid water and moves with abso- 
lute freedom under the force of pressure or ex- 
pansion in any direction. With this condition of 
complete mobility, the bottom of the ocean of air is 
always under the enormous pressure of a superin- 
cumbent mass miles in depth, which is subject to all 
the ** skyey influences " of attraction and of heat. 

The meteorology of the West Indies is particularly 
affected by two results of the uncontrollable action 
of atmospheric currents, — the steady and beneficent 
trade-winds of the north-east, and sudden spasms of 
storm which sometimes develop into the furious and 
destructive hurricane. The heat of the equatorial 
zone causes the air to expand and rise, and this pro- 
duces a pressure from north and south which draws 
currents along the surface of the globe from the 
direction of the poles. The rotation of the earth 
toward the east, increasing in surface speed with 
increase of diameter in its latitude, tends to draw 
these currents into one equatorial stream, but the 
freedom of expansion and movement characteristic 
of air causes it to join the rising mass where the 
currents meet in the equatorial belt, and to flow 
back in counter currents to the north and south. 

In the northern hemisphere the surface currents, 
drawn from the direction of the Arctic zone and de- 
flected to the south-west by the revolution of the 
earth, constitute the north-east trade-winds. Sweep- 



20 THE WEST INDIES 

ing over a wide expanse of ocean without interrup- 
tion, they become within a certain zone remarkably 
uniform and steady, though affected more or less 
by changes of season and external atmospheric dis- 
turbances. These steady winds were a mystery to 
the early navigators, and sometimes filled them with 
alarm lest they should be carried to regions from 
whose bourn there would be no return. The outer 
A^erge of the Antilles is in the direct track of the 
trade-winds, which have a perceptible effect in tem- 
pering and equalising their climatic conditions. In- 
cidentally they give more rain to the northern and 
eastern coasts than to those bordering on the Carib- 
bean Sea, and bring the rainy season, after the first 
tropical heat of the year, by condensing the moisture 
that rises from the ocean. 

An explanation of the causes of storms and 
cyclones is not relevant here, but the '' hurricane " 
is peculiar to the West Indies, and its birth is an in- 
teresting phenomenon. The very word comes from 
the Carib " hurakan," a contraction of " huiravu- 
can." The vast mass of heated air, rising from the 
burning deserts of Asia and Africa, spreads in the 
upper regions, and a part of it flows west over 
the Atlantic, slowly descending. Something similar 
goes on, but with less intensity, over the tropical 
areas of South America. The heated masses from 
the east encounter in the upper air of the tropics 
the returning currents of the trade-winds speeding 
to the east of north, and generate vast eddies which 
descend obliquely toward the earth in a north-west- 
erly direction until they strike the lower currents 



ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 21 

rushing to fill the equatorial vacuum. Sometimes 
there is a concurrence of differences in temperature 
and pressure and in electrical conditions, which 
begets a terrific commotion along the earth. 

Out of the conditions thus briefly indicated springs 
from time to time the West Indian variety of cyclone 
which is called a hurricane. Its path is narrow, but 
it is apt to take its course to the west of north across 
the lower part of the Lesser Antilles and over one 
or more of the larger islands, carrying destruction 
upon its way on land and sea. Its huge spirals 
always circle from left to right, and the velocity of 
the wind is greatest on its western verge, where its 
movement is with the general direction of the storm. 
Varied conditions of moisture and electricity cause 
darkness and lurid lights and colours, which add 
their appalling effect to the fury of the air ; lightened 
pressure within the vast spirals of the wind lifts the 
surface of the sea and sometimes causes great tidal 
waves, and occasionally masses of water are whirled 
up from the ocean to be precipitated in drenching 
torrents upon some hapless shore. 

Partly as the result of the currents of the ocean 
and the air, the temperature of the islands, extend- 
ing over nearly twenty degrees of latitude, does not 
differ much between Great Bahama and Trinidad, 
and variations of climate are not great except as 
affected by altitude and here and there by local con- 
ditions. The rainy and less healthful season comes 
on in late June, two months later, it is said, than in 
the early times, and lasts till the end of September, 
with great variation in the rainfall. Then comes 



22 THE WEST INDIES 

the cooler and drier season, followed by the hotter 
and drier in the spring, but the temperature is rarely 
above 90° Fahrenheit, and 98° is an unusual extreme. 

Speaking of the islands as a whole, we may say 
that there is in their vegetation and their animal 
life a great deal of variety within a general tropical 
uniformity. There are strange resemblances in flora 
and fauna mingled with curious contrasts. In local- 
ities far apart, in formations of the remote miocene 
period, remains have been found of great quad- 
rupeds — mastodons, elephants, rhinoceroses, and 
hippopotamuses — akin to those whose fossils are 
dug from similar formations in the United States. 
In historical times there have been no indigenous 
mammals larger than a raccoon. Most of those sur- 
viving are the smaller rodents. Existing species of 
animals and even of birds indicate that the period 
of migration from the continents and between the 
islands by land is remote, the later species being 
peculiar to certain islands. Birds of brilliant plum- 
age, like those of South America, are not common, 
but there are fifteen species of humming-birds, five 
of which are found nowhere else. The reptiles have- 
afifinities with those of Mexico and Central America, 
but there is an ant-eater in Cuba whose congener is 
found in Madagascar. The deep-sea fauna on the 
Caribbean side are akin to those of the Pacific Ocean 
rather than the Atlantic. 

Everywhere in the tepid waters is an abundance 
of molluscs and of fish, and sharks lurk about the 
reefs. The coral-building polyp is found on all the 
banks and along most of the shores, raising its fan- 



ORIGIN AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 



23 



tastic columns, making fringes to the islands, and 
obstructing channels with its persistent structures. 
Tangled with the foundations of these are varied 
algae and other marine flora, and drifting on the 
surface, especially to the eastward, are acres of 
sargasso, like verdant prairies of the sea. 





CHAPTER III 

BEFORE THE " DISCOVERY** 

WHEN Columbus was preparing for his adven- 
turous voyages, they were not intended so 
much for the discovery of new lands as for the open- 
ing of a new way to the old lands of the East. He 
was to seize on the way anything that might belong 
to the " heathen," as a preliminary to their conver- 
sion, simply because the heathen were assumed to 
have no rights of possession, and not because the 
previous existence of the property was unknown. 
The so-called ** right of discovery," as superior to 
the right of possession, was a peculiar conception of 
fifteenth-century Christianity. It was really the 
right to take by force whatever did not already be- 
long to Christian nations. 

At that time the great American archipelago was 
occupied by the people to whom it naturally be- 
longed, and they were probably about as numerous 
as the present peculiarly mixed assortment of in- 
habitants. For the most part they were not the 
aborigines of the land, but immigrants from the 

24 



BEFORE THE ''DISCOVERY''' 2$ 

coast of South America. There were some remnants 
of savage tribes, Hke the Guanahatabibes of Western 
Cuba, whose ancestors are supposed to have come 
from the North American continent ; and traces 
have been found in caves or in the earth of primeval 
inhabitants who may have been the real autoch- 
thones. In the mountains of Haiti there are linger- 
ing vestiges of myths and legends and of rites and 
superstitions which are believed by some to have 
come down from prehistoric ages and become 
mingled with others of African origin. 

But before the arrival of the great European navi- 
gator, the people consisted almost wholly of two 
races, or branches of the same race, which had made 
their way northward from the valleys of the Esse- 
quibo and the Orinoco — the Arawaks and the 
Caribs. They seem to have been hereditary ene- 
mies, and one was apparently driven before the 
other. The Arawaks were a mild and peaceable 
race, and had occupied the Bahamas and Greater 
Antilles long enough to develop tribal differences 
and variations of language, while the Caribs were 
a fierce and aggressive people which held full 
possession of the Lesser Antilles, including the 
Virgin group to the east of Puerto Rico. They are 
supposed to have driven the Arawaks from these 
islands, and they sometimes made hostile incursions 
upon the shores of the great islands to the west and 
were even dreaded among the Bahamas. In these 
marauding expeditions they not only plundered the 
villages of the peaceful Arawaks, but captured their 
young men for slaves, or, as some maintain, for sup- 



26 THE WEST INDIES 

plies of fresh meat, and their women for wives and 
bondservants. 

The Bahamas were somewhat sparsely peopled, as 
they are at present, and the inhabitants called them- 
selves Yucayos, which became corrupted to Lucayos 
when the Spanish adopted for these scattered islands 
the designation Los Cayos, or ** The Keys." They 
were a simple people, and in the genial climate, 
where they passed much of their time in the tepid 
waters, they were wont to be " naked and not 
ashamed." They were short of stature, sturdy of 
form, and of a rich reddish-brown, or copper, colour, 
and had a practice of flattening the head in infancy, 
which, gave it a regular backward slope from the 
brows. This they seem to have regarded as an im- 
provement upon nature, but they were not otherwise 
addicted to personal adornment. There was not 
much tillable soil over the calcareous skeleton of 
their islands, and they lived mainly on fish, mol- 
luscs, eggs of sea-birds and turtles, the flesh of the 
turtle and the iguana, bread made from the wild 
cassava plant, and pineapples and such other fruit 
as was to be had without cultivation. They were 
wonderful swimmers and divers, and were accus- 
tomed to go down into the clear water among the 
coral reefs for part of their food supplies. Their 
shelter, when they needed any, was a hut of reeds 
and palm leaves, and their dress was little else than 
their native innocence. They used bows and arrows 
and a slender lance tipped with fish bone, and pad- 
dled about in broad-bottomed canoes, some of which 
would carry forty persons or more. They wrought 



BEFORE THE ''DISCOVERY" 2/ 

cotton and other fibres into rude nets and the ham- 
acas (hammocks) which were their beds. Skulls of 
these people and some rude stone implements have 
been found in caves on Long Island and the Caicos 
and Turks. There is a hatchet made of a smooth 
green stone, of a kind not found on the islands, 
presumably indicating an occasional interchange of 
goods with the other islands or the mainland. A 
curious seat carved from lignum-vitse is presumed to 
have been the humble throne of a chief. The Yu- 
cayos were leading a tranquil and harmless life when 
rudely disturbed by the discoverers. 

The people of Cuba were of the same race, for 
they spoke substantially the same language and had 
similar physical characteristics, but they had de- 
veloped peculiarities of their own. There may have 
been some mingling of blood with the Mayas across 
the channel in Yucatan, for there is a similarity in the 
relics found on the two shores, though those of the 
mainland indicate greater advancement. Hatch- 
ets of polished serpentine or diorite found near 
Bayamo, other relics discovered in caves near Cape 
Maisi, and those deposits of human remains called 
caneys, are believed to indicate considerable an- 
tiquity. The principal tribe of Cuba at the time of 
the " discovery " was the Ciboneys, or Cebuneys, 
who had the wide skulls, flattened foreheads, straight 
black hair, and coppery complexion of the Yucayos. 
They had the same gentle and peaceable character- 
istics; but, their land having a variety of fertile soil, 
they were largely occupied in agricultural pursuits. 
They raised large fields of maize and manioc; they 



28 THE WEST INDIES 

gathered fruits and knew the charm of smoking to- 
bacco ; they spun and wove the fibre of cotton into 
simple fabrics, made crude pottery, and carved im- 
plements and utensils of wood and stone. Relics 
of rude images and carvings of pictorial inscriptions 
upon rocks have been found, which show the awak- 
ening of the artistic and literary instincts. Their 
dwellings were generally extensive huts formed of 
branches, reeds, and large leaves of palm and plan- 
tain, and contained many families, sometimes a com- 
munity of a hundred persons and more. They, too, 
had broad-beamed craft with which they navigated 
the inlets and bays of their land and sometimes 
ventured forth to sea. Cuba was not so devoid of 
quadrupeds as the Bahamas, having the peccary, a 
" dumb dog," — probably the raccoon, — " rats and 
mice, and such small deer," but the people did not 
eat flesh. Arawak is said to mean meal-eater, and 
the diet of the race may account for its gentle and 
peaceable disposition and amiable qualities, which 
excited the admiration of the discoverers, but did 
not protect the harmless people from their cruelty. 
Jamaica — Xaymaca, " the land of fountains " — 
was also populous. Its pimento groves swarmed 
with a tribe described as somewhat smaller and 
darker than those of Cuba, but their characteristics 
and habits were much the same. They lived chiefly 
upon the products of the soil, which they cultivated 
as much as they found necessary; they smoked to- 
bacco, and were abstemious in eating and drinking, 
and were neither warlike nor addicted to the slaugh- 
ter of living things. More relics of native handi- 



BEFOkE THE ''DISCOVERY" i^ 

work have been found here, and early descriptions 
indicate a greater fondness for ornamentation. The 
great cacique is said to have had a showy canoe 
that would carry a hundred men, to have worn a 
band of coloured stones around his head and a 
mantle of variegated feathers, and otherwise to have 
been decorated with gold and beads and stones more 
or less precious. 

Old records declare that Haiti had more than i,- 
000,000 inhabitants when it was discovered, and some 
chroniclers put the number much higher, but nobody 
knows. It simply gave the impression of swarming 
with people, who were first described as small of 
stature and of dark complexion, with all the amiable 
characteristics of their fellow Arawaks. The island 
was divided into five kingdoms, each with its own 
cacique, — the Arawak title for ruler, — but, in the 
mountains of the interior, the realm of Cibao, which 
was reported to be a realm of gold, had for its po- 
tentate a Carib invader with warriors at his com- 
mand. AH along the coasts, however, the people 
raised their fields of maize and manioc, and of 
tobacco and cotton ; they constructed their canoes 
of Cottonwood and cedar, made simple fabrics of 
cotton and feathers, wrought implements of wood 
and stone, and essayed their rude works of art in 
pottery and graven images. In some of the lime- 
stone caves with which the island abounds rude 
carvings have been found of crocodiles, turtles, frogs, 
scorpions, and other animal forms, incrusted with 
the calcareous deposits of ages. The people seem 
to have led a peaceful life, save when disturbed by 



30 THE WEST INDIES 

the occasional forays by water of the fierce Caribs of 
the south, or by the wild hurricane. 

The old chroniclers declare that Puerto Rico when 
" discovered " had 1,000,000 people under one ca- 
cique. They were of the same race as those of Haiti, 
and their ways and habits were not materially differ- 
ent. It is apparently here, however, that the Ara- 
waks had been longest established and had reached 
the highest development. The relics of ** celts," 
stone implements and weapons, ornaments, masks, 
and collars, though the discovery of such is scanty 
yet, show a somewhat greater variety, a higher 
finish, and more perceptible significance. One pecul- 
iar to the island is the polished collar of stone, 
shaped like a horse-collar and nearly as large, some- 
times weighing sixty-five pounds or more. It is 
believed to have been somehow connected with the 
simple religious faith of the people. One tradition 
is that it was carefully wrought in the owner's life- 
time to be placed over his head in his final resting- 
place, to prevent the evil one from snatching him 
away. 

There are many evidences in relics and in the early 
records that the religious perceptions of the Arawaks 
were much like those of other primitive people. 
They deified the forces of nature and had a dread 
of unseen beings. Some of their rude images repre- 
sented household or tribal gods, — their lares and 
penates or teraphim, — and they had a vague con- 
ception of one mighty Deity whose voice was in the 
thunder and whose presence gave power to the 
storm, and of a continuation of life beyond the grave. 



BEFORE THE ''DISCOVERY'' 3I 

This crude form of faith, radical in the human race, 
characterised most of the scattered tribes of the 
Western world before the light of the East reached 
its shores. 

The island of Borinquen, as the native people 
called what is now Puerto Rico, had stayed the tide 
of Carib invasion and conquest, though it had not 
prevented repeated attacks which reached to Haiti 
and even spread terror among the Bahamas. But the 
Caribs had taken full possession of the long chain of 
the Lesser Antilles and established themselves 
among the Virgins. They were a different breed 
from the gentle and unresisting Arawaks — fierce, 
aggressive, unyielding, pitiless to their enemies and 
their victims, but hospitable and generous to kins- 
men and friends. They were taller and of a lighter 
complexion, ^ — sometimes described as olive, or as 
yellow, to distinguish it from the coppery red, — had 
finer hair, of a gleaming black, and were accustomed 
to paint their bodies and make their faces hideous 
with rings around the eyes and streaks upon the 
cheeks. Their apparel consisted chiefly of necklaces 
of bone and teeth, and girdles of shells and coloured 
stones, variegated with feathers. 

When the Spaniards first encountered the Carib 
warriors, they were horrified by evidences of canni- 
balism. They found bones about the huts and 
camps, and skulls apparently used for drinking 
vessels or domestic utensils, and they even reported 
seeing human limbs hanging up as butchers' sup- 
plies. Some have doubted whether these gruesome 
scenes meant more than the sacrifice of the captives 



3^ THE WEST mbiES 

of war as part of some horrible religious ceremony, 
or of hideous feasts commemorating triumphs over 
enemies. But this would hardly better the case for 
the Caribs, and apparently they were occasionally, 
if not regularly, eaters of human flesh. It may be 
that their progenitors in the mountains and valleys 
of South America had been nourished for genera- 
tions upon animal food, and that when they came 
into possession of the islands where beasts whose 
life was in the blood were scarcely known, the crav- 
ing became irresistible, like that of starving men 
at sea or in the Arctic ice. Being naturally meat- 
eaters, they may have begun to devour the meal- 
eating Arawaks who fell victims to their warlike 
prowess, and doubtless the appetite grew by what it 
fed on. The fierce and enterprising spirit of the 
Carib may have been due to the fact that he was an 
eater of flesh, and it may have demanded the diet of 
flesh to maintain itself; and human flesh affording 
the only available supply, he was impelled to de- 
vour his enemies and to restrain himself in the com- 
pany of strangers. There is a remnant of the old 
Carib stock in the island of Dominica and another 
in St. Vincent, but in them there is no vestige of 
the old warlike spirit. The people till the soil and 
live upon the fruits of the ground. 

Spanish writers used to say that Carib meant man- 
eater, and was synonymous with cannibal; but it 
meant nothing of the kind, and it was they who 
derived " cannibal " from it by an ingenious varia- 
tion from caribal or calibal, injecting into it a sug- 
gestion of canine origin. The name had its source 



BEFORE THE ''DISCOVERY'' . 33 

in South America, in the region of the Calibe Moun- 
tains, and seems to have merely meant " people," 
being adopted by a race assuming to be the people 
par excellence, as a certain ancient race took the name 
of " Shem," signifying " name," or pre-eminence. 
The Caribs compressed the skulls of infants, but 
not after the manner of the Arawaks. They made 
the forehead high and square, instead of flat and 
sloping backward. Their language was different 
from that of the weaker race, but a modification of 
the latter prevailed among their women, because 
these women were mostly captives from the Arawaks 
or descendants of such. The boys as they grew up 
followed the speech of their fathers and the girls that 
of the mothers, thus keeping up the distinction, 
which was less difficult with the simple tongue of a 
savage tribe than it would be with the complex 
language of a civilised people. The chiefs and war- 
riors are even said to have had a special " lingo," in 
which they discussed affairs of state without the 
need of secret sessions. The Caribs left relics of 
their better days, which, with the not very accurate 
records of old Spanish chroniclers, show that they 
made ornaments of metal as well as of stone and 
shell ; that they fabricated baskets and wove cotton 
cloth as well as constructed canoes, and shaped 
weapons and implements of peace from wood and 
bone and stone. There are rock inscriptions and 
carvings on some of the islands which may or may 
not antedate the " discovery." They kindled fires 
by rubbing two sticks together, and they had rude 
altars upon which offerings were made to the mys- 



34 THE WEST INDIES 

terious power to which they did reverence. Their 
religious conceptions, like their mental activity, 
seem to have been somewhat higher than those of 
the more virtuous Arawaks, and they believed in 
one God, and a future life for the brave and worthy. 
They had a kind of family life and lived in small 
huts, made of poles stuck in the ground, bound to- 
gether at the top, and covered with branches, bark, 
and leaves. How many of these people there were 
on all the islands no one ever knew, and the first con- 
jectures were very wild. They were not wholly ad- 
dicted to war and the securing of animal food ; but 
they, too, raised crops after a fashion, and did not 
wholly disdain the products of the soil. Neither the 
mild Arawak nor the fierce Carib seems to have been 
given to sensuality, and in that respect they com- 
pared favourably with the Spanish " Christians," 
who proceeded to exterminate the gentler race and 
to enslave, so far as they could, the more vigorous. 
Incidentally the lack of animals and of quadrupeds 
in the archipelago has been noted, and as a result 
there was practically no such thing as beasts of 
burden or domestic animals, little use of skins, and no 
occupation in hunting; and the simple industries of 
the people were carried on by hand with the rudest 
devices. But the lavish gifts of nature, gathered 
with little effort, were sufficient for the wants of man ; 
the forests flourished unchecked from generation to 
generation ; vegetation waxed and waned with the 
changing seasons, and the teeming life of bird and 
reptile and insect went on beneath the tropic sun 
and through the whirlwind and the storm. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 

IT is not our business to follow the trials and 
triumphs of Don Cristobal Colon, known to 
readers of English as Christopher Columbus, and 
christened in his native Italy as Cristoforo Colombo, 
for they have been made familiar by many writers ; 
but we must trace briefly the process of his dis- 
covery of the West Indies. It was Friday, August 
3, 1492, when he left the small port of Palos with 
his three little vessels, and on September 6th, after 
a call at the Canary Islands, he left all known land 
behind him, and ventured upon the unexplored 
waters to the west. The Santa Maria was a decked 
vessel, ninety feet long, with four masts, two of 
which were square - rigged and the other two 
equipped with lateen sails. A poop above the deck 
astern covered an armament of guns capable of 
hurling the grape and shrapnel of that day, and 
officers and crew numbered sixty-six men. The 
Pinta and Niiia were little caravels, or undecked 
vessels, turned up fore and aft like a floating cradle. 

35 



36 THE WEST INDIES 

The former, commanded by Martin Alonso Pinzon, 
had a crew of thirty men, and the latter, under his 
brother, Vicente Yafiez Pinzon, had one of twenty- 
four men. Both were rigged with lateen sails only. 
There were one hundred and twenty men in the 
whole expedition. 

The distance traversed in the ten weeks* voyage 
was scarcely one fourth of the way to the far-off 
Indies which Columbus expected to reach by this 
western route. Across his track lay the two great 
continents, then unknown to Europe, and the archi- 
pelago stretching between them which was to be 
the limit of his explorations, save for some brief and 
dubious lingerings upon the southern and western 
shores of the Caribbean Sea. This was not exactly a 

new world." For ages the St. Lawrence, the 
Mississippi, and the Amazon had drained their great 
valleys ; the Rocky Mountains, the Cordilleras, 
and the Andes had stretched their long barrier from 
north to south between the oceans ; the dusky tribes 
had roamed the forests and built up the rude splen- 
dours of Mexico and Peru, and the tropical islands 
had inclosed the great basins of the double sea. 
But of this the adventurous navigator knew nothing 
v/hen he set forth upon the limitless " waste of 
waters." 

He was disturbed by variations of the magnetic 
needle never before observed ; he was astonished by 
the vast and floating fields of marine verdure in the 

Sargasso Sea"; he was mystified by the steady 
pull of the trade-winds; and finally he was delighted 
by the sight of land, which he had no doubt was a 



THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 37 

newly discovered outpost of the Indies. He was 
steering straight for the northern entrance to the 
Gulf of Mexico through the Bahamas when he came 
upon the island called Guanahani by the natives, 
and by him named with pious gratitude San Salva- 
dor, or Holy Saviour. We may as well ignore the 
long-time controversy, and conclude at once that 
this was what is now called Watling Island. It may 
seem strange that there should have been a contro- 
versy, but the Spanish made no settlement in the 
Bahamas, and within twenty years they had carried 
the harmless natives into slavery in the Antilles; 
and the islands were left desolate and deserted for a 
century after. Then San Salvador and the others 
named by Columbus were lost sight of, and after 
the English had given them new names it be- 
came difficult to identify them from the old de- 
scriptions. 

But the place where Columbus fell on his knees 
and kissed the earth, giving thanks to God and 
taking possession in the name of their Catholic 
Majesties, was undoubtedly the north-east coast of 
Watling Island. He said that there were ** no 
better people on earth " than those he found there. 
He did not linger long, but skirted down the island's 
western coast, and next reached what is now Rum 
Cay, to which he gave the more attractive name of 
Santa Maria de la Concepcion. After that he 
touched Long Island, which he called Fernandina 
in honour of the King, and Crooked (including the 
spur now called Fortune), which he named Isabella, 
for the Queen. He left the Bahama group, after a 



38 THE WEST INDIES 

stay of two weeks in all, at the flat and sandy islets 
now called " Ragged," to which he gave the more 
graceful, if not more appropriate, name of Las Islas 
de Arenas (The Islands of Sand). Having seven 
Lucayan natives with him, he sailed south for two 
days, and on October 28th reached the coast of 
Cuba at what is now the port of Gibara. He called 
the country Juana, in honour of Juan, son of Fer- 
dinand and Isabella. He thought surely he had 
conie to the realm of the Grand Khan, and he under- 
took to send an embassy to that potentate, but 
neither he nor the splendid capital described by 
Marco Polo was to be found. Neither was there 
evidence of great riches in these parts, and the mis- 
sion of converting the heathen must await the dis- 
covery of earthly treasures. 

The disappointed navigator coasted eastward until 
he reached the cape which he called Maisi, and which 
still bears the name. The natives, with disinterested 
zeal, assured him that the land of gold was *' Bohio," 
over the water to the east. Martin Pinzon seems to 
have wearied of the search, or determined to make 
it on his own account, for he had deserted his com- 
mander and put off to the eastward alone with the 
Pinta. So, when Columbus arrived off the western 
end of Haiti, on the 6th of December, he had only 
the Santa Maria and the little Nina left, with con- 
siderably less than a hundred men. The point of land 
before him he called Cape San Nicolas, from the 
saint on whose day he first beheld it. It is where 
the termination of a mountain ridge stands Hke a 
huge breakwater, and is still called Mole St. Nicho- 



THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 39 

las. This western end of the island was called by 
the natives Bohio, the ** great country," and the 
other end was Quisqueya, " mother of the earth," 
and the whole island was Haiti, the '* land of moun- 
tains." Columbus called it Espafiola, or Little Spain, 
and the Latinised form, Hispaniola, came into com- 
mon use. Access to the land of gold was still far to 
the east, and the two lone vessels, the Nina in the 
van, made their way along the northern coast, the sce- 
nery of which charmed the adventurous Admiral, as 
his journal testifies. They reached the spacious bay 
of Acul, and heard of the great king, Guacanagari, - 
and also of the interior region of Cibao, which was 
the very heart of the land of gold. Cibao must, in- 
deed, be that Cipango which was the chief object of 
their quest. 

Before they reached the realm of the coast mon- 
arch with the long name, the Santa Maria was run 
aground by a sleepy boy in whose charge the rudder 
was left, and became a wreck. The Indian village 
of Guarico was still some miles away, but the good 
cacique lent timely aid, and the wreckage of the 
ship and the whole company were got to that spot 
on Christmas morning. In honour of that event, 
Columbus called the fort which he built of the tim- 
bers of the Santa Maria and armed with her guns. 
La Natividad, or Navidad. He was treated with 
generous hospitality by Guacanagari, who made an 
imprudent display of gold ornaments; and in grate- 
ful recognition the explorer took possession of the 
land in the name of their Majesties of Castile and 
Leon, and planned an expedition of plunder to 



40 THE WEST INDIES 

Cibao. The reef on which the Santa Maria was 
wrecked is off Cape Haitien, and the site of the vil- 
lage of Guarico, where the fortress of La Navidad 
was built, is now occupied by a little fishing hamlet 
called " Petit Anse." 

Leaving forty-three men here as a garrison, 
Columbus set out for Spain to report his discovery 
and bring out a larger expedition. On his way 
along the coast he anchored near a picturesque 
mountain which he called Monte Cristi, where he 
encountered the deserter, Martin Pinzon, and the 
Pinta. He entered the mouth of a river farther on, 
and named it Rio del Oro, River of Gold, because he 
found glittering particles of the precious dust in its 
sands, and assumed that it came down from the 
realm of fabulous wealth. He told of seeing some 
unattractive mermaids here, which were probably 
specimens of the manatee. 

At the eastern end of the island he found a deep 
bay, where he landed. He was at first inhospitably 
greeted by the natives with a thick flight of arrows, 
which led him to call the bay the Golfo de las 
Flechas, or Gulf of Arrows, but he soon made 
friends with the cacique of the Samana tribe, whose 
name the bay still retains, and spent several days 
on shore. He heard of Madanino, the island of the 
Amazons, and was eager to find it. Taking several 
of the natives to show him the way, he sailed on, 
but failing to discover the fascinating Amazons he 
proceeded to Spain. He arrived at Palos, March 15, 
1493, having got separated from Pinzon and the Pinta 
in a storm. As the result of his reports, he was 



THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 4 1 

treated with great distinction, and a new expedition 
was fitted out with much liberality. There were 
three carracks, fourteen caravels, and 1500 men. 
Horses and cattle and other equipment for a colony 
were taken along, and withal twelve missionaries to 
attend to the saving of the souls of the heathen 
whose virtues Columbus so highly extolled. 

On this second voyage a more southerly course 
was taken, and the longed-for land first sighted 
was called Deseada, '* the Desired," now Desirade. 
Another small island was named Marigalante, for the 
vessel which the Admiral commanded, and a cluster 
encountered on " All Saints' Day " was called Los 
Santos, *^The Saints," now the French islands " Les 
Saintes.** A larger island to the south attracted 
the navigator, and he called it Dominica, because 
first seen on Sunday (November 3, 1493), but find- 
ing its coast difficult of access he turned back and 
made his first landing on the alluring shores of a 
still larger island to the north. He called this 
Guadalupe, for Santa Maria de Guadalupe in Estra- 
madura. Here he made his first acquaintance with 
the fierce Caribs, some of whom he took along 
with him, together with some women captives who 
had been brought from Borinquen (Puerto Rico). 
As he continued north he named Montserrat from 
a mountain near Barcelona upon which there was a 
famous monastery, and Antigua from Santa Maria 
la Antigua, whose great sanctuary was in Valladolid. 
The next that came in view gave such delight to the 
explorer by its charming aspect that he called it St. 
Christopher, some say in honour of his own patron 



42 THE WEST INDIES 

saint, and some from a fancied resemblance of its 
great mountain to a gigantic person bearing a 
smaller one upon his back after the manner of the 
self-sacrificing person in the legend. The island is 
now commonly known as St. Kitt's. San Martin 
was also one of the discoveries of this trip, and Santa 
Cruz and the whole procession of Virgins, which re- 
minded the Admiral of St. Ursula and the unfortu- 
nate ii,ooo maidens of the story. 

Skirting along the southern coast of Puerto Rico 
he made a landing at the western end of the island, 
to which he gave the name San Juan Bautista. 
There were gushing springs where he went ashore, 
and he named the spot Aguadilla, and behold it is 
so called unto this day. He did not leave the 
women whom he had rescued, but took them over 
to Hispaniola with him. There is a romantic story 
to the effect that the friendly chief Guacanagari was 
enamoured of one of these, by the name of Catalina, 
and induced her and her companions to disappear 
with him into the forest, whereupon he was re- 
garded as a renegade and an enemy, and was subse- 
quently treated accordingly. 

When at last La Navidad was regained near the 
end of 1493, it was a scene of desolation. The fort 
was dismantled, the garrison was dead, and the In- 
dian village of Guarico had been burned. Some of 
the Spaniards had ventured into the mountains in 
search of gold, but the cacique of the region was the 
Carib invader Coanabo, who ruled in the heart of 
the land of gold. He had not only welcomed the 
intruders ' ' with bloody hands to hospitable graves, ' ' 




DISCOVERY OF HISPANIOLA. 
From Herrera's History of the West Indies, 



THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 43 

but had sallied forth from his stronghold in the 
mountains with warriors and had slaughtered those 
in the fort and wiped out the village of the mild 
Arawak chieftain who had encouraged the despoilers 
of the land. This was discouraging, and the site 
for a colony was abandoned and a new one sought 
farther east. 

Columbus bethought him of Monte Cristi and the 
River of Gold, some forty miles east of Cape Hai- 
tien, and in a spacious bay beyond the river's mouth 
he decided to plant his colony. It was in January, 
1494, and he built a fort and a church, and in a 
couple of months had founded the first real settle- 
ment in the New World, which he called the City of 
Isabella. It was a starting-place for the search for 
gold, and a roadway was constructed through the 
mountain gorges to the valley on the other side 
down which flowed the Rio del Oro (the Yaqui). 
Columbus himself headed a force of four hundred 
of his men, some of them mounted on horses, and 
with flags flying, drums beating, and helmets gleam- 
ing in the sun, the cavalcade forced its way toward 
the golden realm of Cibao through what came to be 
known as the Pass of the Hidalgos. He established 
a fort, or mining station, which he called Santo 
Tomas de Yanico, visited the Indian villages, and 
gathered gold, insomuch that in February a vessel 
was sent to Spain to bear it to the King as earnest 
of what was to be expected. 

Leaving a garrison of fifty-six men at the fort, 
under command of Pedro Margarita, the Admiral 
returned to Isabella, but word soon came of a 



44 THE WEST INDIES 

hostile disposition on the part of the Indians in the 
valley, and a reinforcement of fifty men was dis- 
patched. The Spaniards dealt in a grasping and 
cruel manner with the subjects of Coanabo, and 
when a force of five hundred men, under Marga- 
rita, was sent exploring about the Cibao region, Don 
Alonso de Ojeda taking command of the fort, a 
dangerous spirit was aroused among the subjects 
of the implacable Carib of the mountains. 

Columbus, having got his colony started upon its 
career of gathering gold, deemed all safe, and putting 
a council presided over by his brother in charge, 
took to the water again. He explored along the 
southern coast of Cuba to the westward for some 
distance, and then turned south and discovered 
Jamaica. He called it Santiago, but the native 
name Xaymaca, " land of the fountains," has pre- 
vailed, just as the original designation for the cen- 
tral part of Cuba has displaced Juana and several 
other appellations for that island. The navigator 
turned back to the Cuban coast and continued to 
trace it westward until he positively declared that it 
was part of the mainland of Cathay. In fact, he 
had an instrument drawn up to that effect and at- 
tested before a notary, which did not prevent Cuba 
from terminating in a cape to the west. The small 
islands among which he passed on a part of his 
course he called the Garden of the Queen. Having 
decided that there was no end to Cuba, he turned 
east again, skirted the whole southern coast of Haiti, 
and landed on the island of Mona, which received 
its name from him. It was now that he is said to 



THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 45 

have ** fallen into a lethargy," and was taken to 
Isabella in September, 1494, where he lay sick for 
several months. 

The colony did not flourish. It was surrounded 
by swamps and proved to be unhealthy, and the 
greedy quest for gold and the reckless treatment of 
the natives had bred serious trouble. As soon as 
the great Columbus was on his feet again, he and 
his brother Bartholomew took energetic measures to 
put down the troublesome natives who objected to 
being plundered. Ojeda, who had been left in com- 
mand of the fort, had succeeded in capturing the 
intractable Carib cacique in the Cibao Mountains, 
and now an army with horses and guns and blood- 
hounds marched up the valley, and spread slaughter 
and devastation among the villages of the terrified 
natives. There was no more resistance in that 
quarter, and Guarionex, the cacique of Samana, 
was forced to pay tribute in nuggets of gold. Five 
shiploads of the subjugated natives were sent to 
Seville to be sold as slaves, of which Queen Isabella, 
greatly to her credit, did not approve. 

Columbus was losing ground in the royal favour 
during his prolonged absence, and one Juan Aguado 
was sent out to inquire into his doings. This the 
bold discoverer did not like; and after some high 
words with the envoy, he left his brother Bartholo- 
mew in command as Adelantado, and set out for 
Spain with \y\t,Nina, March 10, r496. He arrived at 
Cadiz in bad spirits, but his reception cheered him up, 
and he undertook to get up another expedition for 
the "Indies." It was May 31, 1498, when he got away 



46 THE WEST INDIES 

from San Lucar, with six vessels, for his third voy- 
age. He took a still more southerly route this time, 
and stopped at Cape Verde. Leaving there July 4th, 
he had a hard voyage, and was in distress for water 
when on the last day of the month three peaks that 
seemed to blend in one were descried in the dis- 
tance. In devout thankfulness he made for this 
new land, and named it La Trinidad, " The Trin- 
ity. ' ' He entered the Gulf of Paria by the southern 
channel, lingered long enough to supply his imme- 
diate wants, and passed out to the north. The 
capes and headlands of the South American coast 
he took to be islands, and gave them little heed. 
On his way northward, hastening back to- his colony 
on Espafiola, he discovered the islands of Margarita, 
Grenada, which he called Ascension, and St. Vin- 
cent. 

By the end of August Columbus was again at Isa- 
bella. The colonists had reduced all that part of 
the island to subjection, and had founded the city 
of Santo Domingo on the southern coast, but they 
had been quarrelling among themselves, one Roldan 
having headed a revolt against Bartolomeo Colon, 
the Admiral's brother. The matter was composed 
by giving Roldan an office and dividing land and 
labourers, practically slaves, among his followers. 
Some, however, went home to Spain, taking two 
shiploads of slaves along, which so incensed the 
Queen that they were all set free. But the ex- 
colonists fomented trouble for Columbus, and as the 
colony had proved a disappointment, the promised 
streams of gold failing to reach the treasury, Fran- 



THE PROCESS OF DISCOVERY 47 

CISCO de Bobadilla was sent out to investigate, and 
was made governor in place of the discoverer. He 
took a letter directing all forts and arms to be turned 
over to him, and arrived in Hispaniola, October, 
1500. 

Ojeda had been making trouble by trying to seize 
authority, but had been suppressed ; the natives had 
been gathered about the military stations to be 
Christianised, and gold-hunting was active ; but 
Bobadilla proceeded to give things a new turn. He 
sent Columbus home in chains, but his harsh and 
high-handed methods produced a reaction, and Nic- 
olas de Ovando was sent out to supersede him, arriv- 
ing in the spring of 1502 with thirty ships. The 
vessel in which Bobadilla was sent back to Spain, 
with considerable treasure, was lost in a storm. By 
this time Isabella had been abandoned, and the capi- 
tal of the colony was established at Santo Domingo, 
which had been founded by Bartolomeo Colon 
in 1496 w^hile his brother was absent between his 
second and third voyages. The city was named for 
their father Dominico, the worthy weaver of Genoa, 
or rather for his patron saint. A soldier named 
Diaz had fled over the mountains from Isabella to 
escape punishment for some offence, and got into 
the good graces of a native woman near the southern 
side of the island, on the river Ozama, where he 
found much gold. With this as a propitiatory offer- 
ing he returned to headquarters and was pardoned. 
Bartolomeo Colon thereupon proceeded by water 
to the southern coast and established a fort at the 
mouth of the river in which Diaz had made his dis- 



48 THE WEST INDIES 

covery, and there the city of Santo Dommgo was 
started. 

In the spring of 1502, after Ovando had been sent 
out as governor of the colony at Santo Domingo, 
the indefatigable Christopher succeeded once more 
in getting up an expedition for new discoveries. It 
consisted of four caravels with one hundred and fifty 
men, and he set out from Cadiz on the 9th of May. 
He was instructed to keep clear of the colony on the 
island of Hispaniola and attend strictly to the busi- 
ness of making new discoveries, but after passing 
through the Caribbees between the islands of Mar- 
tinique and St. Lucia, which he was the first to dis- 
cover, he encountered a storm which disabled the 
largest of his vessels. It was the same storm that 
sent his old oppressor Bobadilla and his treasures to 
the bottom of the s^a. He ventured into Santo 
Domingo and called upon Ovando for relief, but 
failed to get it. Patching up his shattered vessels 
as best he could, he made his way through the 

Garden of the Queen " once more to Yucatan, 
and groped down the coast of Honduras, hearing 
perhaps of the region of Veragua which was to 
furnish a lordly title to his descendants. 

He got as far south as Darien, vainly seeking for 
some opening which would enable him to go on his 
westward way in search of the elusive realm of the 
Grand Khan. After cruising about for some months, 
and contemplating the establishment of a permanent 
colony on the mainland, he wandered back toward 
Cuba in search of supplies. Off the north coast of 
Jamaica he was caught in a storm again and took 



THE PROCESS OF DtSCOVERV 49 

refuge in a bay, which he called Santa Gloria, in 
thankfulness for his escape, but which is now called 
St. Ann's Bay. The refuge in which his wrecked 
vessels are said to have finally gone ashore is still 
called Don Christopher's Cove. Weary and worn 
with his bufifetings, racked with painful disease, and 
tormented with the mutiny of his crews, he lay here 
for months waiting for relief. Even the rude natives 
refused to supply his wants. It was then that, hav- 
ing calculated the time of an eclipse of the moon, he 
threatened to deprive them of the light of that lu- 
minary if they did not obey him. When, true to the 
threat, the light of the moon went out, they came 
in great alarm and implored him to restore it, 
promising humble obedience in future. The wily 
old Italian retired from view to work his wonders, 
and when it was time for the shadow to pass off the 
moon's face he returned and graciously announced 
to the trembling pagans that their prayer would be 
heeded. He had no further trouble with them. 
He had got word to Ovando and to his brother Bar- 
tholomew by sending a venturesome sailor by the 
name of Diego Mendez across the dangerous chan- 
nel to the coast of Hispaniola. Finally two vessels 
were sent to his relief, and he went home to die, 
reaching Seville September 7, 1504. 

The work of Columbus was done, and the process 
of discovering the archipelago, which he called " the 
Indies," may be regarded as finished. He died in 
the belief that he had reached the far East by a 
western route, and with no conception of the conti- 
nents whose verge he had barely touched. Many of 



50 



THE V/EST INDIES 



the smaller islands had not been visited, and no 
settlement was made elsewhere than on Espafiola in 
his lifetime, but nearly all that has been called the 
West Indies came within the range of his explora- 
tions. 




CHAPTER V 

SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT 

IT was after the return of Columbus to Spain from 
his first voyage to " the Indies," with his glow- 
ing report of discoveries, that Pope Alexander VI. 
obligingly issued his famous bull, running a line 
across the face of the earth from north to south, a 
hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape 
Verde Islands, and declaring that all " heathen 
lands " discovered and to be discovered west of that 
line should belong to Spain and all east of it to 
Portugal. By that indefeasible title all these ** In- 
dies " of the west and the mainland thereabouts of 
whatever extent became the exclusive property of 
the Spanish monarchy, to have and to hold against 
all comers. By the treaty of Tordesillas the line of 
division between the possessions of Spain and Por- 
tugal was removed to three hundred and seventy 
leagues west of Cape Verde, but the title still rested 
upon the Pope's bull. It was this change of the 
meridian of the infallible authority on rights of dis- 
covery and possession that gave Portugal its ground 
for claiming Brazil. It was not until 1509 that the 

51 



52 THE WEST INDIES 

Spanish colonists began to reach beyond the island 
of Hispaniola. By this time all the native tribes in 
that island had been subdued by the most atrocious 
cruelties; their lands and themselves had been ap- 
portioned among their conquerors by the process of 
repartimiento (allotment), and the centre of Spanish 
power was fully established at Santo Domingo, on 
the southern coast, where Bartolomeo Colon had 
built his castle. 

There had been five little kingdoms in the island 
at the time of the discovery, and the first to be 
brought into subjection was that of Guanacagari, 
the cacique who had befriended the invaders, and 
whose realm was on the north coast toward the east. 
Next Coanabo, the Carib chief in the Cibao Moun- 
tains, was captured for presuming to resist the gold- 
hunters. His territory was called Maguana. The 
kingdom of Guarionex was on the north coast east 
of the Yaqui River, extending to the Bay of Samana, 
and including the river valley and the Vega Real. 
On the south coast, at the eastern end of the island, 
was the cacique Colubanama, whose realm was called 
Higuey. The fifth kingdom was a populous domain" 
at the western end of the island, called Xaragua, and 
ruled by Behechio, whose beautiful sister was the 
wife of Coanabo. 

All these were effectually subdued and their pos- 
sessions distributed among the Spanish officers and 
their followers. The Columbus family received a 
large allotment in the choicest part of the island, 
and the city of Santo Domingo, the oldest of the 
New World and long the capital of the colony, be- 




CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



Painted in 1342 at the court of Philip II. of Spain, by Sir Antonio 
Moro, from two miniatures in the palace of El Pardo, which 
miniatures have since been destroyed. The original painting is 
now in the collection of C. F. Gunther, Esq., Chicago, by whose 
kind permission this reproduction has been made. 



SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT 53 

came their headquarters. Among the forces of sub- 
jugation was a pack of fierce bloodhounds, but they 
were no more ruthless than the soldiers. Ferdinand 
and Isabella had been much concerned for the con- 
version of these poor heathen to the true faith, and 
the pious Admiral who scattered holy names among 
the islands so profusely wrote in one of his letters: 
** Your Highness ought to rejoice that they will soon 
become Christians, and that they will be taught the 
good customs of your kingdom " ; and yet the good 
Christopher, overcome by his eagerness for golden 
treasures to send to his sovereign — and to keep for 
himself — countenanced the atrocities by which the 
heathen were converted, not into Christians, but in- 
to slaves or tenants of the tomb. The resistance of 
the natives was not to the loss of their independence 
or to the sovereignty of the Christian King, but to 
forced labour in the mines, to. a tribute which they 
could not pay, and to the ravaging of their fields 
and ** provision grounds," to feed the Spanish sol- 
diers. The Spaniards sought to obtain the precious 
gold by the toil of others, for while they would en- 
dure hardships and dangers in war and adventure, 
they would not work. The Indians did not like to 
work except in their own quiet way and for their 
own benefit, and under the galling servitude they 
died by the thousands. Many perished from direct 
acts of cruel violence, many were starved to death, 
and multitudes committed deliberate suicide. 

The result was that the labour force by which the 
Spanish colonists strove to enrich themselves rapidly 
died out, and the goose that laid the golden ^gg was 



54 THE WEST INDIES 

in danger of expiring. Then they set about captur- 
ing natives from the other islands and forcing them 
into servitude in the mines and on the plantations 
of Hispaniola. In 1509, Ferdinand, whose queen 
had been squeamish a few years before about the 
sending of slaves from '' the Indies " to Spain, but 
was now dead, authorised the sale of the Lucayans 
into slavery on the Antilles. They were enticed 
from their own islands by an alluring promise that 
they were to see their ancestors in a land of happi- 
ness, and in a few years the Bahamas were depopu- 
lated, and the gentle Lucayans died out in their 
bondage like the other Arawaks. 

Not growing rich fast enough by this policy of 
starving and slaughtering their labour force, the 
colonists began to seek new fields. The earliest 
movement was that of Ponce de Leon from the 
eastern end of Hispaniola to the island of Borinquen, 
which Columbus had called San Juan Bautista, and 
which has since been known as Puerto Rico. One of, 
the places at which Columbus had landed was Agua- 
dilla on the western coast, and there De Leon made 
his first landing for observation in 1508. Learning • 
that there was much wealth as well as many people 
fit for slaves in the island, he returned to Santo Do- 
mingo for an armed force and a number of colonists. 
He found a splendid bay on the northern coast, 
where in 15 10 he established the town of Caparra, 
on the side of the bay where is now the Pueblo 
Viejo, or Old Village. The next year, however, on 
a more favourable site he founded the city of San 
Juan de Puerto Rico, " St. John of the Splendid 



SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT 55 

Port," and a few years later Caparra was aban- 
doned. Ponce de Leon pursued the fatal policy 
of dividing up the territory into personal allot- 
ments by the process of repartimiento, and forcing 
the inhabitants into servitude, slaughtering them 
without mercy, and hunting them down with blood- 
hounds when they resisted or ran away; and it 
produced the same effect as in Hispaniola. But 
in 1 5 12, the year after he got San Juan established, 
he was carried away on his quest for the fountain of 
youth, and the colony languished. There was an 
invasion of Caribs and a destructive hurricane, and 
in a few years the island was deserted by the Span- 
ish colonists. For a century or more it was left 
undisturbed and almost without inhabitants. ^ 

After the death of the great discoverer, his son, 
Diego Colon, became a person of consequence in 
Spain. He married Dona Maria de Toledo, a niece 
of the Duke of Alva, and succeeded to the rights 
and dignities of his father in the New World. He 
came out to Hispaniola in 1509, and invested him- 
self with the title of Viceroy of the Colonies in 
America. He took possession of Santo Domingo, 
and built a splendid palace on the banks of the 
Ozama, a solid structure that stands there in ruins 
to-day, and is still called the Casa Colon. Diego 
was a man of considerable enterprise as well as great 
pretension, and did much to extend the colonial 
domain of Spain in the Antilles. In the first year 
of his power he sent an expedition to Jamaica under 
Juan d'Esquivel, who built a town on the north 
coast, and called it Sevilla d'Oro. The oldest town 



56 THE WEST INDIES 

now on the island was established in 1525 on the 
southern coast, and called Santiago de la Vega. It 
is the present *' Spanish Town." D'Esquivel under- 
took to deal humanely with the natives, but under 
his successors the insatiate greed for gold asserted 
itself, and the process of extermination by forced 
labour and atrocious cruelty began. This destruc- 
tive operation was intended to compel productive 
labour in the mines and on the plantations, and to 
force the payment of impossible tribute in gold and 
cotton. It was also resorted to as a means of sup- 
pressing resistance whenever the wretched victims 
presumed to attempt it. The result was the rapid 
dying out of the native population, which had 
almost disappeared in a generation, and the gradual 
substitution of negro slaves as a labour force. 

Cuba was the first of the Greater Antilles to be 
discovered and the last to be actually occupied. It 
was not known to be an island until after the death 
of Columbus. In 1511, Diego Velasquez was sent 
thither from Santo Domingo by Diego Colon with 
four vessels and three hundred men. He landed at 
a place near Guantanamo, but the first permanent" 
settlement was made at Baracoa on the north coast. 
Among his companions was Hernando Cortez, who, 
in 1 5 19, sailed from the young city of Santiago for 
Yucatan and proceeded to his career of conquest 
in Mexico, in spite of the protests of Velasquez. 
Another companion of Velasquez was Bartolome 
Las Casas, whose father had been a companion of 
Columbus in his early voyages. He had himself 
been educated at Salamanca and destined for the 



SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT 57 

priesthood, but being of an adventurous disposition 
he had accompanied his father on the voyage of 
1498, and afterwards came out to Hispaniola with 
Ovando and became one of the colonists. His sus- 
ceptibilities were outraged by the cruelties perpe- 
trated upon the natives, and in Cuba he tried in vain 
to stop them. He took his allotment of land and 
of slaves, but he freed the latter, and cried out 
against the whole infamous system. In 15 16 he 
went to Spain and got a commission appointed to 
go to ** the Indies " and put a stop to the inhuman 
treatment of the natives, but it accomplished 
nothing. To mitigate the evil, as he thought, he 
encouraged bringing out negroes as slaves, but 
awakening to the fact that negroes were also human 
beings, and finding that they, too, were treated in 
an inhuman manner, he retired to a monastery in 
Santo Domingo filled with disgust and indignation, 
and afterwards went to Mexico, where he became a 
bishop. 

Doubtless the feelings of Las Casas, who was 
called ** The Apostle of the Indies," led him to ex- 
aggerate when, years after the event, he wrote his 
famous Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de las 
Indias. After speaking of the gentle and harmless 
character of the natives of the islands, he said, ac- 
cording to an old English version of his work — there 
is no recent one: 

" To these quiet lambs, endued with such blessed 
qualities, came the Spaniards like most cruel tygres, 
wolves, and lions, enraged with a sharp and tedious hun- 
ger ; for these forty years past, minding nothing else but 



58 THE WEST INDIES 

the slaughter of these unfortunate wretches, whom with 
divers kinds of torment, neither seen nor heard of be- 
fore, they have cruelly and inhumanely butchered ; that 
of- 3,000,000 of people which Hispaniola itself did 
contain, there are left remaining alive scarce three hun- 
dred persons. And for the island of Cuba, which con- 
tains as much ground in length as from Vailadolid to 
Rome, it lies wholly untilled and ruined. The islands 
of St. John and Jamaica lie waste and desolate. The 
Lucaya Islands, neighbouring toward the north upon 
Cuba and Hispaniola, being above sixty or thereabouts 
— with those islands that are vulgarly called the Islands 
of the Gyants, of which that which is the least fertile is 
more fruitful than the King of Spain's garden at Sevil, 
being situate in a pure and temperate air, are now 
totally unpeopled and destroyed, the inhabitants thereof, 
amounting to above 500,000 souls, partly killed and 
partly forced away to work in other places ; so that there 
going a ship to visit those parts, and to glean the re- 
mainder of those distressed wretches, there could be 
found no more than eleven men. Other islands there 
were near St. John, more than thirty in number, which 
were totally made desert." 

Finally Las Casas confidently avers — 

" that for those forty years, wherein the Spaniards exer- 
cised their abominable cruelties and detestable tyrannies 
in those parts, that there have innocently perished above 
12,000,000 of souls, women and children being numbered 
in this sad and fatal list. Moreover, I do verily believe 
that I should speak within compass should I say that 
above 15,000,000 were consumed in this massacre." 

The good bishop's book appeared in 1542, twenty 



SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT 59 

years after he retired to the Dominican monastery, 
and twelve years after he shook the dust of the 
Indies from his feet, and his statistics are faulty; 
but the native population of Cuba had been reduced 
to about 4000 in 1552, and in 1564 there were said 
to be barely sixty families of aborigines leading a 
vagrant life in the western part of the island. The 
Greater Antilles were virtually stripped of their na- 
tive population, which was largely replaced by Afri- 
can slaves. It should be noted that the " St. 
John " of our old English translation of Las Casas 
is San Juan, now Puerto Rico, and not the small 
island which bears that name at present. In fact, 
the Spaniards met with such fierce resistance when 
they attempted to kidnap the Caribs of the Lesser 
Antilles that they concluded to leave them alone, 
and never attempted to colonise those islands, 
though claiming them as possessions. 

Before the voyages of Columbus the Portuguese 
navigators had indulged in the trafific of buying 
negro slaves from the Moors in Africa and selling 
them in the peninsula. They had been bought both 
in Portugal and in Spain. A few had been brought 
out with the first colonists to Hispaniola, and as 
early as 1505 the Spanish traders to '* the Indies " 
began to bring them for sale as workers in the 
mines. The dying off and killing off of the natives 
speedily stimulated the traffic, and it was even en- 
couraged by the priests, who had some little kind- 
ness for the '* Indians," whom they desired to 
convert, but hardly regarded the African negro as a 
convertible human being. In 15 17, the importa- 



6o THE WEST INDIES 

tion of 4000 African slaves yearly was formally 
authorised by the Spanish Government, and the 
trade was granted as a monopoly to the chamber- 
lain of Carlos V., and he sold it out to a company 
of Genoese merchants. Spaniards could not deal 
directly with Africa on account of the papal bull 
giving that side of the world to Portugal, but enter- 
prising English rovers of the sea respected neither 
the bull of Alexander nor Spain's monopoly in 
trade with her colonies, and they began to intrude 
with troublesome persistency. Finding a profitable 
market for slaves, a sea-captain, named Hawkins, 
afterwards *' Sir John," began a regular trafific be- 
tween the African coast, where he kidnapped the 
negroes or bought them cheap from kidnappers, and 
the West Indies, where he disposed of his live car- 
goes at a great profit. 

The sugar-cane had been introduced into Hispan- 
iola by Columbus from Cape Verde. Sugar had 
been known in Europe only a few centuries, and 
was still a costly luxury. Cotton was indigenous 
to the islands, and though it had previously come 
to Europe from the East, it was comparatively ex- 
pensive and little used. Tobacco soon began to be 
appreciated on the other side of the Atlantic, and, 
in spite of denunciations, the demand for it gradually 
grew. The mines were not so rich as had been sup- 
posed, and when labour became difficult to get, the 
gold-hunters drifted away to the " Spanish Main," 
as the coast from the Orinoco to Darien was called, 
and to Mexico and Peru. Legends of El Dorado, 
the gilded king who lived in a gorgeous palace by a 



SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT 6 1 

lake, and made offerings to the Spirit that dwelt 
beneath it by covering his body with gold dust and 
washing it off in its waters, enticed them like a 
will-o'-the-wisp into the interior of South America. 
But the plantations of sugar and of cotton and 
tobacco, worked by slave labour, gradually became 
more profitable than the mines, and those who had 
large allotments of land grew rich in time, and the 
slave trade flourished. The wretched negroes fared 
little better than the poor Arawaks, but they en- 
dured it better, and although the mortality among 
them was great by reason of cruel treatment, the 
force was kept up by importation. 

The attempt of Spain to maintain a monopoly of 
trade and to draw treasures to herself from her new 
colonies was an incitement to contraband traffic, 
which degenerated into piracy. The voyages of 
exploration and discovery had been made chiefly by 
Portugal and Spain, but England, France, and Hol- 
land had the trading propensity and were on the 
search for markets. Their ships ventured to the 
Spanish islands first in quest of traffic, but being 
excluded from that by Spanish authority, they fell 
to forcing their goods upon the colonists and com- 
pelling payment. From this it was an easy step to 
plundering the settlements or laying them under 
contribution and to lying in wait for the treasure 
galleons of Spain and capturing them. The rovers 
and corsairs became frequent in these waters by the 
middle of the sixteenth century. 

Thus it will be seen that the first effect of Spanish 
possession was the extermination of the native 



62 THE WEST INDIES 

people in those islands actually occupied and in the 
Bahamas. The second was the establishment of 
slavery and an enormous stimulus to the slave trade, 
which afterwards extended to most of the colonies 
of the New World, including those of Great Britain, 
planted much later. The third was the develop- 
ment of smuggling and of piracy through the restric- 
tions put upon trade and the effort to monopolise it 
for the benefit of Spain and the enrichment of her 
ruling men. These evils were a direful heritage for 
all concerned, and Spain is still suffering from their 
consequences. During the century after the dis- 
coveries of Columbus, Spain's possession of the 
West Indies was not seriously disputed, but her oc- 
cupation was confined to the four large islands of 
the Greater Antilles, and there the settlements did 
not greatly increase or multiply. They were sub- 
ject to disastrous chances, and languished rather 
than flourished. Their history for nearly a century 
was almost a blank, save for hurricanes and earth- 
quakes, and occasional piratical forays from the ships 
of excluded nations. 




CHAPTER VI 

ROVING TRADERS, PRIVATEERS, AND PIRATES 

THE first Englishman who attempted to trade 
with the new * * Indies, ' * whose fabulous wealth 
began to be noised abroad, was Thomas Tison ; but 
as all traffic with Spanish colonies by foreigners was 
contraband, he sent goods from Bristol to Spain, 
and had them shipped from there. That round- 
about process being troublesome, and perhaps un- 
profitable, no scruple was made of attempting a 
direct trade even though it was regarded as wicked 
smuggling. There is record of a ship fitted out by 
royal authority in 1527, and devoutly named Domi- 
nus Vobisaim, to engage in this sinful pursuit. It 
was accompanied by other and smaller vessels, and 
proceeded boldly to Santo Domingo and asked for 
the privilege of trading with the inhabitants. The 
request was answered by a volley from the batteries 
on shore, and the ships were driven away, but were 
reported as finding more favourable opportunities 
for business in Puerto Rico, then called San Juan, 
or St. John. English and French " rovers " came 
and clandestinely traded with "the Indians." The 

63 



64 THE WEST INDIES 

cattle and hogs which had been imported from Spain 
ran wild, increasing and multiplying at a marvellous 
rate in the mountains of Hispaniola, and they fur- 
nished the remnants of tribes with the means of 
buying such trifles brought by the traders as took 
their fancy, and afforded supplies of provision and 
large profits to the traders themselves. The settlers 
of the coast were not averse to the illicit traffic 
when they dared to encourage it; and when they 
did not, the " rovers " were not averse to forcing it 
upon them, in spite of their feeble " authorities." 

Perhaps the most piratical of these traders at first 
were the Frenchmen, who were called corsairs — a 
term originally the same as courser, or cruiser, and 
hence practically synonymous with " rover." In 
1536, one of these laid Havana — then a '' city " 
barely seventeen years old, and really a little unpro- 
tected settlement — under contribution and forced 
from it a ransom of seven hundred ducats. Three 
Spanish vessels presuming to chase him afterwards, 
he captured them and went back and exacted another 
ransom as a penalty. In 1538, a French corsair 
entered the harbour of Santiago de Cuba and had a 
lively fight with an armed Spanish vessel, which 
was kept up for three days. Concluding that no 
profitable bargain could be struck at that port, the 
Frenchman quietly took leave under cover of night. 
The same year Havana was sacked and burnt. This 
kind of dealing with the people was kept up for 
many years, and in 1554 Havana was again de- 
stroyed in an effort to trade with it. When the 
Netherlands was at war with Spain in consequence 



TRADERS, PRIVA TEERS, AND FIR A TES 65 

of the cruel policy of Philip II., after the loss of the 
seven provinces, the Dutch began to take a hand in 
this West Indian traffic. It was all very discourag- 
ing to Spain's trade monopoly with her American 
colonies, and dangerous to the galleons on the way 
from Mexico and the Spanish Main with ducats and 
doubloons. Forts were built, some of which still 
frown upon the sunny harbours; coast-guards were 
established, and Spanish warships patrolled the 
waters, but the depredations did not cease. At 
the same time the enterprising gold-seekers had 
mostly gone to Mexico, or were exploring the great 
central isthmus or the southern continent, and the 
planters were having a hard time to get work done 
without doing it themselves. The colonies were 
merely struggling along in those trying times. 

It was from 1562 to 1567 that Captain Hawkins, 
the Sir John and M. P. of a few years later, made 
his three trips to Sierra Leone and the Guinea coast 
to capture negroes and sell them for slaves in the 
Hispaniola market. He took back cargoes of sugar, 
ginger, and hides, which he disposed of to advan- 
tage in Europe. It was a profitable traffic, and 
carried on devoutly. Hawkins's largest ship on his 
second slave-trading voyage, one of seven hundred 
tons, was called the Jesus, and after escaping from 
a gale with his human cargo, he wrote: " The Al- 
mighty God, who never suffereth his elect to perish, 
sent us on the i6th of February the ordinary breeze." 
Hawkins had difficulty in disposing of his cargo on 
this trip, and got a French corsair to help force some 
of the living merchandise upon colonists who did 



6^ THE WEST INDIES 

not want it, of course taking large pay in the prod- 
ucts of the land. On his third voyage to Africa, 
Hawkins was accompanied by a promising youth of 
twenty, Francis Drake by name, and on his return 
disposed of his slaves to advantage because the 
Spaniards no longer dared, even if they desired, to 
refuse to buy, after which he took refuge from a 
storm in Vera Cruz. Here he was granted the 
privilege of repairing his ships and then treacher- 
ously attacked by a Spanish fleet. He got away 
with only one of his five vessels, and that in a 
bad plight, and had a miserable time on what 
he called the ** sorrowful voyage " home. Young 
Drake had naturally conceived no violent love for 
the Spanish on this his first long voyage. 

In 1572, when only twenty-five years old, he went 
forth as commander of an expedition of his own, 
which has sometimes been called piratical; but, 
though there was at that time no actual war with 
Spain, he had letters of marque from Queen Eliza- 
beth, which constituted a legal license to *' make re- 
prisals " upon the Spaniards. He did not operate 
among the islands this time, but made his attack 
upon Nombre de Dios at the isthmus, and getting a 
view of the Pacific was enticed into making his long 
and famous cruise in those waters in search of wan- 
dering wealth. A few years later, when there was 
really war between England and Spain, and when 
Drake was Sir Francis and an admiral, he came out 
with a fleet of twenty-five vessels and with 2300 
men, for the avowed purpose of crippling Spain by 
an attack upon " the Indies." This was in 1585, 



TRADERS, PRIVA TEERS, AND PIRA TES 6/ 

and after destroying the town of Santiago on the 
Cape Verde Islands, the doughty Admiral proceeded 
westward. He reached the island of St. Christopher 
late in December and spent Christmas there putting 
his ships in order. 

Early in January, he set out to attack Santo Do- 
mingo, but concluded first to demand a heavy ran- 
som, which he enforced by beginning to destroy the 
town. He came down in his terms to " what the 
traffic would bear," and being paid 25,000 ducats, 
directed his attention to Cartagena on the Spanish 
Main, and from there went to Nombre de Dios 
again. He collected large booty at both places in- 
stead of destroying them. He was presently called 
off to help dispose of the famous " invincible Ar- 
mada" of Spain, which was threatening England. 
In 1595, he came back, accompanied by his old com- 
mander Hawkins, with twenty-seven vessels, includ- 
ing six of the " Queen's ships." When they came 
to the Caribbees, there is said to have been a quarrel 
between Drake and Hawkins, the cause or conse- 
quence of which has never been made clear; but it 
does not matter, for the older mariner died then and 
there, and has been duly honoured in British history, 
piratical old slave-trader as he was. Like Columbus, 
however, he is to be judged with a full regard for 
the prevailing spirit of his time. Drake proceeded 
to Puerto Rico, and made an attack upon San Juan, 
but it was a half-deserted place without wealth, and 
he made nothing out of this venture, though he 
captured some stray vessels. 

Finding the islands an unprofitable field for his 



68 THE WEST INDIES 

operations at that time, the knightly Admiral went 
on to that region of wealth, " the Spanish Main," 
and brought up again at Nombre de Dios, then the 
treasure city of the isthmus. The people had heard 
of his approach, and in the terror which his name 
inspired had hidden their treasures and dispersed 
themselves in the mountains and forests of Panama. 
Finding pursuit futile, Drake burnt the town and 
destroyed every vessel in the harbour, leaving a 
desolate spot where afterwards Puerto Bello, or the 
" Beautiful Port," took the place of Nombre de Dios, 
the " Name of God." Before his fleet got away, 
the famous old sea-fighter — not so very old either 
— succumbed to a sudden attack of dysentery, and is 
said to have died in full uniform, after delivering a 
farewell address to his men. His ships were after- 
wards attacked by a Spanish fleet off Cuba, and had 
to fight their way out. 

The rovers, English, French, and Dutch, swarmed 
so among the islands, and grew so piratical, that the 
coast settlements were terrorised and Spanish trade 
was in danger of extinction. The galleons to and 
from " the Main " had to sail in squadrons under the. 
protection of men-of-war. Their usual course was a 
stop at Santo Domingo and a cruise to Cartagena 
and Puerto Bello to gather treasure, and then out 
through the channels among the islands, beset with 
piratical enemies, and at certain seasons subject to 
violent storms, for the homeward journey. So great 
were the perils and risks, that it is recorded that of 
one hundred and twenty-three vessels expected in 
Spain one year only twenty-five arrived in safety. 



TRADERS, PRIVA TEERS, AND FIR A TES 69 

Spain at the end of the sixteenth century was the 
common foe of England, France, and Holland, and 
her domineering career was nearing its close. Her 
title to " the Indies " of the West was not yet seri- 
ously questioned, and her nominal possession of the 
islands was not disputed. Her actual occupation 
did not extend beyond the Greater Antilles, and the 
settlements in Puerto Rico had practically died out. 
The colonies of Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba, having 
killed off the native population, were suffering for 
lack of labour, which the enterprising slave-traders 
were not yet able fully to supply, while the depre- 
dations of the roving privateers, as pirates were 
called in time of war, and of open and avowed 
corsairs, were a serious discouragement. Balboa 
had " stared at the Pacific in wild surmise " as early 
as 1 5 13; Cortez had gone from Cuba to Yucatan in 
1 5 19 and then to his conquests in Mexico; Ojeda 
and others had prowled about the northern part of 
South America in search of El Dorado ; Pizarro had 
opened up the treasures of Peru, and De Soto, start- 
ing from Cuba, had explored Florida and discovered 
the Mississippi. 

Adventurous spirits from Spain no longer sought 
for riches on the islands of the archipelago which 
Columbus gained so much glory in discovering, 
but were attracted to the strip of shore and the 
unexplored regions beyond, known as the " Span- 
ish Main" and believed to conceal inexhausti- 
ble wealth. An occasional English or Dutch vessel 
seemed to have something else in view than plunder 
or destruction, but for the present those who were 



70 THE WEST INDIES 

looking for chances to colonise shunned the islands. 
Sir Walter Raleigh, on one of his prospecting trips 
to Guiana and the Orinoco region, stopped in Trin- 
idad, and in 1595 captured the Spanish town of St. 
Josef, but did not try to retain it. The contigu- 
ity of Trinidad to the South American coast, and 
the fact that its population was divided between the 
Arawaks and the Caribs, who still came from the 
mainland, explain the existence of a Spanish town 
here. It belonged rather to Venezuela than the 
West Indies. In none of the Caribbee Islands 
properly so called did the Spaniards effect a settle- 
ment. 




CHAPTER VII 

ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH COLONISERS 

IF the sixteenth century was one of discovery and 
conquest in the western world, the seventeenth 
was a century of colonising, and it speedily became 
evident that Spain could not have it all to herself. 
When the infallible Pope drew his line across the 
face of the waters and awarded to that nation all the 
heathen land to the west thereof, he did not know 
what a gigantic contract he assumed, and when, in 
1494, by the treaty of Tordesillas, Spain and Portu- 
gal agreed to remove the dividing line two hundred 
and seventy leagues farther west, the continent was 
still undiscovered. 

Great Britain, having become a Protestant power, 
had no respect for the title of possession which 
rested upon the Pope's bull, and France lost respect 
for it as soon as she was on hostile terms with Spain. 
When the Netherlands got out of the clutches of 
Spain and was at war with her, she did not care by 
what title possession was claimed. She had no re- 
gard for it on any ground. It is remarkable what a 
proportion of her vast domain Spain succeeded in 

71 



72 THE WEST INDIES 

holding until near the present century. Portugal 
made good its claim to Brazil, and at the beginning 
of the colonising period England, France, and Hol- 
land each got a small foothold at Guiana; but other- 
wise she kept all South America until her colonies 
one by one revolted and gained their independence. 
Save for a little British spot at Honduras, she kept 
Central America and Mexico into the present cen- 
tury, when Mexico included Texas and California 
and all between. She also had, as the. result of De 
Soto's explorations, Florida, extending indefinitely 
westward from the peninsula, and at one time 
Louisiana, when it stretched all the way up the 
Mississippi valley and over to the Pacific coast 
" where rolls the Oregon." 

Near the end of the sixteenth century Sir Richard 
Grenville and Sir Walter Raleigh, and a little later 
Captain John Smith and others, in their hunt for 
eligible sites for colonies, paid special attention for 
a while to the Orinoco region, lured partly by the 
enticing legends of El Dorado. In their wanderings 
from South to North America, where they founded 
the Virginia colony, they were wont to pause 
among the Caribbees, and they did not forget the 
goodly prospect for colonising hereabouts for such 
adventurous spirits as had no respect for the Spanish 
title of possession or fear of the native inhabitants. 
For a time, however, English colonisers were kept 
busy in Guiana and on the North American coast at 
Virginia and New England. The French had made 
a beginning still farther north in Canada and had 
been feeding an appetite for possessions in newly 



ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH COLONISERS 73 

discovered lands. They grew covetous of a share 
in the tropical islands with whose charms the cor- 
sairs had already made intimate acquaintance. The 
Netherlands had begun operations with a trading 
company, which first took possession where now 
flourishes the goodly city of New York; and Dutch 
smugglers had long been prowling about the Spanish 
islands with a special headquarters in the island of 
St. Eustatius, from which they were driven only to 
return. A so-called admiral of the Dutch took San 
Juan de Puerto Rico in 161 5, but was killed for his 
pains and no advantage came of it. But in 1621 the 
Dutch West India Company was incorporated, which 
had serious colonising as well as trading purposes. 

The Spanish colonies had been confined virtually 
to the Greater Antilles. A few settlers had taken 
possession of the islands adjacent to the Spanish 
Main, including Trinidad and Curagao, or Querisao, 
as it is quaintly called in Dampier's Voyages. They 
were practically left undisturbed in Trinidad until 
near the close of the last century, save for the un- 
ceremonious call of Sir Walter Raleigh two hundred 
years before. The Dutch, whose title was altogether 
one of conquest, acquired during the war between 
Spain and the Netherlands, captured Curagao and 
its neighbours Buen Aire and Aruba in 1634, and 
slowly colonised them. Spain retained the rest of 
what she called the " Sotavento," or Leeward, group 
of islands, the finest of which was Margarita, until 
they went with Venezuela upon the achievement of 
her independence. 

The first English settlement in the West Indies 



74 THE WEST INDIES 

was made in 1624 by Sir Thomas Warner and his 
associates, who were an offshoot of Raleigh's " Com- 
pany of Noblemen and Gentlemen of England for 
the Plantation of Guiana." They first took posses- 
sion of the island of St. Christopher, extending their 
claim to Nieves, which- was close by, and which was 
Anglicised into Nevis. At this time there was one 
of those French adventurers generally called cor- 
sairs, by the name of Esnambuc, prowling around ; 
and in a tussle with a Spanish galleon which he had 
failed to capture, his vessel was crippled, and he 
put in at St. Christopher for repairs. The English 
and French were then on friendly terms, and as 
Warner was having a hard time with the intractable 
natives, he struck a bargain with Esnambuc for a 
combination against the Caribs and an equitable 
division of the island. This was in 1625. They 
had a hard struggle with the pagans, who persisted 
in trying to hold their own, but finally succeeded in 
quelling, killing, and driving them out. In 1629, 
the Spanish from Hispaniola, who regarded this as 
an intrusion upon their neglected preserves, made 
an unexpected visit and broke up the settlements, 
driving the colonists away. St. Christopher was 
always called the " Mother Colony " by the English 
and the ** Mere d' Antilles " by the French; but 
when colonists returned after the first expulsion, 
England and France were having a quarrel, and 
each claimed exclusive possession. The island 
passed from one to the other several times, and 
was finally confirmed to Great Britain. 

The French refugees of 1629 from St. Kitt's, as it 



ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH COLONISERS 75 

came irreverently to be called, joined with other 
outcasts and adventurers to seize upon the small 
island of Tortuga near the north-western extremity 
of Haiti, and were the means of finally wresting all 
the western part of Hispaniola from Spain. Sir 
Thomas Warner's colonists, who were recruited from 
time to time, had strayed over to Barbuda in 1628, 
and some who were associated with him were among 
the settlers of Barbados even earlier, though the 
main colony there came out from England in 1625. 
In 1632, Warner took possession of Antigua and 
Montserrat, but a formidable rival was looming up. 
After the death of James I., the sham alliance with 
Spain was ended, and in 1627 King Charles assumed 
to grant the whole range of the Caribbees to the 
Earl of Carlisle, and this led to conflicting claims, 
till the Cromwell regime intervened to suspend 
them. Antigua, Barbuda, and some of the other 
northern islands were uninhabited when first taken, 
and others were the resort of smugglers and free- 
booters with whom these waters were infested. The 
infant colonies first planted here did not thrive, and 
after the Restoration a new settlement was made in 
Antigua under Lord Willoughby, to whom the 
island was granted by Charles II. and the Earl of 
Carlisle. In 1680, Barbuda was given to the 
Codrington family. 

Dutch settlers took possession of St. Eustatius in 
1635, and, although it did not escape attack in the 
contentions which followed, that and the neigh- 
bouring island of Saba were finally confirmed in the 
possession of Holland. Dutch smugglers were the 



76 THE WEST INDIES 

first to occupy Tortola, but they were not colonists, 
and were succeeded by some English Quakers who 
held peaceful possession, but were ruined by eman- 
cipating their slaves. St. Martin in 1638 was a 
headquarters for French rovers, or corsairs, but the 
Dutch smugglers divided its possession with them, 
and in 1648 an amicable division of the island be- 
tween the French and Dutch was effected. The 
same year French colonists settled in St. Bartholo- 
mew. All this northern part of the Lesser An- 
tilles was sparsely peopled and feebly held by the 
aborigines, and after one or two spasmodic efforts 
Spain gave up all attempt to exclude other nations 
from them. 

The Bahamas in the meantime continued to be 
practically deserted. English writers are wont to 
say that a settlement was made at New Providence 
in 1629, and it is a matter of record that in 1630 
there was formed " The Governor and Company of 
Adventurers for the Plantation of the Island of 
Providence, Henrietta, and Adjacent Islands," but 
there is no evidence of actual " planting." It has 
also been said that in 1641 the settlements were 
broken up by jealous Spaniards from Cuba, and that 
they were re-established in 1666, to be again dis- 
persed in 1703 by Spanish violence, after which the 
islands were left a prey to the elements and the 
buccaneers for three quarters of a century. The fact 
seems to be that the so-called settlements were, for 
the most part, nests of pirates and wreckers who 
lay in wait for Spanish trading vessels, which, to 
avoid the perils of the Caribbean waters, had begun 



ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH COLONISERS 'J 'J 

to take the Bahama channels on their way from 
Mexico and Cuba. New Providence had, indeed, 
been granted to Lord Albemarle and others in 1680 
as a colony, the *' lords proprietors" having the 
right to appoint a governor and manage all the 
affairs of the island. Some settlers were brought 
over and attempts were made to develop the lonely 
colony before the Spanish and French attack of 
1703, which resulted in the demolition of the puny 
defences of Nassau and the transportation of the 
governor and most of his subjects to Havana. The 
pirates and wreckers then had the Bahamas pretty 
much to themselves until our revolutionary war. 

The greatest resistance to colonising efforts came 
from the native population in the lower Caribbees. 
Two French adventurers, by the name of I/Olive 
and Duplessis, landed upon Guadeloupe in 1635 
with a force of labourers, but they were unable to 
hold possession. Four chartered companies were 
ruined in the effort to colonise the island, and finally 
the surviving Caribs were removed to Dominica and 
St. Vincent. The English had attempted to take 
possession of Dominica as far back as 1627, but had 
been driven off, and the natives were left practically 
undisturbed for a century or more. 

The Caribs had showed themselves so formidable 
that no attempt was made to occupy Martinique 
until 1665, although Esnambuc had taken posses- 
sion in the name of France thirty years before. The 
formal adoption of the colony occurred in 1675, but 
before much progress could be made the natives had 
to be transported. Killing them proved to be too 



78 THE WEST INDIES 

hazardous an undertaking. An English settlement 
was made on St. Lucia as early as 1639, but it had 
a hard struggle to keep alive until the period of con- 
tention between the French and English for the 
possession of this whole group of islands. St. Vin- 
cent, like Dominica, was left in possession of the 
aborigines by agreement, until, in the eighteenth 
century, both French and English settlers crowded 
in, and the island became subject to the long con- 
tention of France and Great Britain in their wars. 
Grenada and the Grenadines were fir^t settled by the 
French, who with their negro slaves undertook to 
massacre or drive out the natives. ' They succeeded 
in holding the principal island. 

Barbados was somewhat out of range of the rivalry 
for possession between the English and French. In 
fact, it was not among the Spanish discoveries. An 
English vessel, named the Olive Blossom, made a 
landing there in 1605 while on the way to Surinam, 
and took possession for the British crown. Colo- 
nists were brought out in 1625, and the English have 
been in practically undisturbed possession ever 
since. Tobago, which lies off Trinidad, and is 
virtually appurtenant to it, was scarcely occupied 
by the Spanish, though nominally in their posses- 
sion. The British flag was raised over it in 1580, 
when the first schemes of colonisation in South 
America were on foot, but the Dutch and French 
successively took possession afterwards. No per- 
manent settlement was made there for a long time 
by any nationality, and in the final composition of 
the quarrels it was kept by Great Britain. As al- 



ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND DUTCH COLONISERS 79 

ready stated, Trinidad, being really an appendage 
of the South American continent, was settled by 
Spaniards at an early period, but their little colony 
was confined to the shore of the Gulf of Paria, and 
the aborigines were long permitted to roam over the 
rest of the island. The latter appear to have been 
comparatively late comers from the mainland, and 
were divided between Caribs and Arawaks, with a 
preponderance of the latter. 

Perhaps the most interesting case of colonising in 
the West Indies during the seventeenth century is 
that which deprived Spain of the magnificent island 
of Jamaica, third in size and by nature one of the 
richest of the Greater Antilles. Spain's enlightened 
policy in dealing with its natural resources and its 
native inhabitants had by the middle of that century 
almost reduced it to a " howling wilderness," peo- 
pled by wild cattle, hogs, and dogs, and overgrown 
with the luxuriance of tropical vegetation and ani- 
mal life. The human inhabitants numbered barely 
3000, half of whom were negro slaves, and all of 
whom had lapsed into hopeless laziness amidst the 
decay of the early settlement. In 1655, Cromwell, 
in the height of his power, sent a fleet under Ad- 
mirals Penn and Venables to attack Spain in her 
island colonies, and being repulsed from Hispaniola, 
they took easy possession of Jamaica. Admiral 
Penn, by the way, who was no better than the other 
piratical sea-dogs of his time, was the father of the 
Quaker coloniser of Pennsylvania, who got vast 
credit for benevolence because he shrewdly paid the 
Indians a trifling fraction of its value for their land. 



8o THE WEST INDIES 

instead of bringing trouble upon his infant colony 
by seizing possession of it. 

When Jamaica was taken in 1655, the Spanish 
residents had their choice of submitting to English 
rule or leaving the island, and a considerable part of 
them fled to Cuba, while most of the negroes took 
to the mountains. ** English colonists" were sent 
out the next year, and they were mostly a pictur- 
esque lot of reprobates from the coasts of Scotland 
and Ireland, and offscourings of the land, mingled 
with some adventurous Jews, bent upon exploiting 
the wealth of the new domain. The Lord Protector 
gave encouragement by proclaiming that all goods 
sent to Jamaica should be landed free of duty for 
seven years, and that the products of the colony 
should be subject to no tax for ten years. Things 
started with a veritable ** boom," but the interesting 
results belong more properly to a separate account 
of Jamaica later in our volume. 

What are called the Danish West Indies were 
never colonised in any proper sense of the word. 
St. Thomas was one of the early resorts of the rovers 
and pirates, and came into the possession of a trading 
company of which the Elector of Brandenburg was 
the director. He was succeeded by the King of 
Denmark, and this was long a neutral trading point 
and grew rich out of the plunder of the other islands. 
Santa Cruz and St. John, which latter was never of 
much importance, were acquired by purchase. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 

FOR a century and more the Spanish colony on 
Hispaniola was confined to the eastern part of 
the island about Santo Domingo; and scattered 
remnants of the natives hunted wild cattle and hogs 
near the coasts in the western part. These hunters 
had a mode of preserving flesh peculiar to them- 
selves, by drying and smoking it over a fire of green 
branches and leaves. Some writers say that the 
beef so prepared by fire was called " boucan " ; 
others say that the places used for drying and smok- 
ing the flesh were " boucans." Pere Labat, a 
French priest, who lived for some time in the Carib- 
bees at the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
and wrote a big book about them, says that " bou- 
can " was the Carib word for the cashew nut, which 
had to be roasted before it was edible. If this is so, 
the word was probably first applied to the edible 
product of the flesh-smoking process, though it may 
have been extended to the open-air smoke-houses 
afterwards. However that may be, when the trade 
was taken up by vagrant sailors and adventurers of 



82 THE WEST INDIES 

European origin, the French made the verb " bouca- 
ner" to apply to the process, and " boucanier " to 
designate those engaged in the business. This latter 
word became buccaneer in English. 

In the time of the first roving traders and priva- 
teers, they were wont to get part of their supplies 
from the natives on shore, including this same viand 

boucan," and gradually their sailors engaged in 
hunting and " boucanning " for themselves, and some 
of them remained on shore permanently for the pur- 
pose. Desperadoes and adventurers of various 
nationalities gathered unto them ; and they were 
joined by refugees from St. Kitt's when the settle- 
ments there were broken up, and with them took 
possession of the small island of Tortuga off the 
north-western peninsula of Haiti as a headquarters 
of their own. They continued to hunt on the large 
island, but made Tortuga a centre of supply and of 
trade with the rovers and smugglers. In 1638, a 
Spanish force made a descent upon the small island 
in the absence of the hunters and massacred every- 
body that they found there. The hunters returned 
to the number of about three hundred, recruited 
their force from material of a still more desperate 
character, if possible, and took to making reprisals 
upon Spanish traders and depredations upon un- 
guarded Spanish settlements. In a few years they 
got together a considerable fleet of vessels and made 
this marine marauding their principal business. 

The original*' boucaniers " were a wild and pictur- 
esque gang. To the waist they were generally 
clothed in a sunburnt and weather-beaten skin, and 



BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 83 

they wore pantaloons of coarse linen, dyed and 
stiffened with the blood of bulls and pigs, and held 
up by a belt of rawhide stuck full of deadly knives. 
Their apparel terminated with pig-skin boots and 
no stockings, and they carried a long-barrelled fire- 
lock loaded with ounce balls of lead. They were 
animated by a common hatred of the Spaniard, 
which in their eyes justified any attack upon his 
person or property, and by a wild sort of attach- 
ment to each other in their perilous life, which led 
to their being known as the " Brethren of the 
Coast." When the Spaniards drove them into the 
career of marauders upon the sea, the word ** buc- 
caneer " took on a new meaning, though they were 
also known as freebooters. This was a mongrel 
English word, " buiten " being Dutch and ** bueten " 
German for " plunder," though the English language 
had and still has the noun " booty." Of this word 
" freebooter " the French made " fribustier," with the 
" s " silent, after the manner of French spelling and 
pronunciation in those times, and then softened it 
to " flibustier, "which the Spanish modified into " fili- 
bustero. " So we finally got the word back with a new 
meaning and a special application as " filibuster." 

France took possession of Tortuga in 1641, and 
made an attempt upon Hispaniola which was re- 
pulsed. She had the help and sympathy of the 
buccaneers, but Spain regained the small island in 
1654, and these disturbances led them to take to the 
English side in the attack on Jamaica, and after its 
capture by Cromwell's fleet they established their 
headquarters at Port Royal and entered upon a 



84 THE WEST INDIES 

flourishing career. They owed their success for a 
long time to the fact that their attacks were made 
upon Spanish trade and Spanish settlements, and 
they had the connivance, if not the countenance, of 
the English and French authorities. They some- 
times even carried letters of marque. 

While the buccaneers' headquarters were still on 
Tortuga, with their piratical fleet they maintained 
outposts in the Virgin Islands, in the Southern 
Bahamas, and in the Bay of Campeachy, where they 
waylaid Spanish traders and watched for the swag- 
bellied galleons from the treasure cities of Mexico 
and " the Main," and where they often hid their 
booty in caves. Their first great leader was a 
Frenchman named Montbar, whom they called 
Pierre le Grand, or Peter the Great. It is related 
of him that while lying off" the Caicos for vessels 
passing the old Bahama Channel, he captured the 
ship of a Spanish vice-admiral. Another French- 
man, a native of Sables d'Olonne, and known as 
Francois I'Olonnois, who had come out to the 
West Indies as a common sailor, became a formid- 
able commander of buccaneers. He captured a 
Spanish frigate which was sent from Havana to put 
down the freebooters, with a negro executioner on 
board who was to hang to the yard-arm every man 
caught ; and he is said to have struck off the heads 
of the Spanish crew, ranged in a row convenient for 
the purpose, licking his sword after each blow. But 
the chief exploits of L'Olonnois, or Lolonois, as he 
is commonly called, were plundering settlements on 
the coast, especially the cities of the mainland. 



BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 85 

When the headquarters of the buccaneers were 
established in Jamaica, Captain Henry Morgan, a 
Welshman by birth, rose to be a famous leader 
among them, and his depredations were also com- 
mitted chiefly on the mainland, though his plunder 
was brought to Port Royal, which became the resort 
of desperate and vicious characters and grew rich 
and wicked from the profits of freebooting. These 
profits were gathered mostly from attacks upon 
Cartagena, Porto Bello, and other cities of the 
Spanish Main, which were either sacked or forced 
to pay heavy ransom. Spanish trade on the water 
had been already ruined, and attacks upon it had be- 
come unprofitable. The days had gone by when 
the rakish craft of the buccaneer could lurk among 
the islands and conceal themselves in shady coves, 
to sally forth in the moonlight and seize a passing 
galleon or a Spanish fighting vessel, cutting the 
throats of captain and crew and carrying bags and 
buckets of treasure to Tortuga and St. Thomas. 

The end of hostilities between England and Spain 
about 1670 virtually put a stop to legalised or toler- 
ated piracy in the Caribbean Sea, and after Morgan's 
great exploit of burning the city of Panama in 1671, 
buccaneering took to the Pacific, ravaged the west 
coast of South America, and wandered over seas, 
though much of the plunder was still brought to 
Jamaica by way of Cape Horn, and a general ren- 
dezvous was kept up among the islands. Morgan 
finally " squared himself " with the authorities, and 
settled down at Port Royal. He was twice Acting 
Governor of Jamaica, was knighted by Charles II., 



86 THE WEST INDIES 

and died rich and more or less honoured, after the 
manner of those days. One of the last of the noto- 
rious organisers of buccaneering expeditions in the 
West Indies was a ferocious Fleming, named Van 
Home, who kept his headquarters on Tortuga to the 
last. His most conspicuous exploit was an attack 
upon Vera Cruz, whither he proceeded with six 
vessels and 1200 men, taking possession of the town, 
plundering the houses, and demanding a heavy ran- 
som to save the place from destruction. While he 
was waiting for this, a Spanish fleet of seventeen 
vessels sailed into the harbour, but Van Home 
escaped with the loot already taken. 

Buccaneering, which had its origin in the West 
Indies and spread far and wide, was practically sup- 
pressed by the peace of Ryswick in 1697, which 
brought an end to hostilities between France and 
Spain, as those between England and Spain had 
ended some years before. In the interval, France 
and England had got on bad terms, and even their 
buccaneers and pirates fell out with each other, 
which was ruinous to their enterprise. The century 
ended with Spanish trade in the West Indies well-- 
nigh killed and the buccaneers dying out for lack of 
countenance and employment, but they were suc- 
ceeded by out-and-out pirates in the next century, 
enemies not of Spain especially, but of mankind, 
who preyed upon commerce indiscriminately on all 
seas. Though piracy was by no means a product of 
the West Indies and was only incidental to their 
later history, it continued to have some peculiar as- 
pects there. During the wars in which England, 



BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 8/ 

France, Holland, and Spain were engaged, with 
more or less shifting of the belligerent parties, it 
was mixed with privateering in many cases. 

Jacques Cassard, the famous French corsair who 
came out in 1712, was furnished with a fleet by the 
merchants of Marseilles, and directed his operations 
against the Dutch, but these were plundering opera- 
tions purely. He captured St. Eustatius and ex- 
acted a large ransom from it. He proceeded upon 
a like enterprise to Curasao, and though he encoun- 
tered vigorous resistance he succeeded in collecting 
600,000 louis d'or. 

But perhaps the most picturesque of West Indian 
pirates was the Englishman, Edward Teach, who was 
known as" Blackbeard." Much romance of doubt- 
ful authenticity has been mixed up with his maraud- 
ing career, but there is no doubt that he was a mari- 
ner who got his training as a privateer when there 
was war with Spain, and turned it to account in rank 
piracy, preying as freely upon English commerce as 
any other. In fact, after lurking off Barbados and 
the Caribbees and prowling among the Bahamas, 
picking up ** prizes " now and then, he carried on his 
operations boldly off the Carolina coast and about the 
Bermudas, and it was the Governor of Virginia who 
finally secured his capture by offering a reward " for 
apprehending or killing pirates," and putting a spe- 
cially liberal price upon Blackbeard's head. The 
head was finally obtained after a sharp tussle by 
one Lieutenant Maynard and his men, and taken to 
Bath Town " hanging at the boltsprit'end." An 
interesting head it must have been, according to an 



88 THE WEST INDIES 

old description of the doughty pirate, whose black 
beard is said to have covered his whole face and 
" frightened America more than any comet that has 
appeared there a long time." This beard, quoth 
the quaint writer of the description, was 

" of an extravagant length ; as to breadth it came up to 
his eyes. He was accustomed to twist it with ribbons, 
in small tails, after the manner of our Ramilie wigs, and 
turn them about his ears. In time of action he wore a 
sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols 
hanging in holsters like bandaliers, and stuck lighted 
matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of 
his face, his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made 
him altogether such a figure that imagination cannot 
form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful." 

Stories of his reckless bravery and wild brutality 
and debauchery are as picturesque and perhaps as 
authentic as this description ; and this delectable 
monster is said to have married fourteen or more 
wives at different times and places, some of them 
without their consent, to be sure. 

Another enterprising character who early in the 
eighteenth century captured cargoes off the Guiana 
coast, Barbados, and the Caribbees, was Captain 
Bartholomew Roberts. He even made seizures in 
the very ports of Martinique and Dominica. Dutch 
vessels were his special prey, but he finally trans- 
ferred his activity to the eastern hemisphere. Cer- 
tain regulations of the pirating business attributed 
to Roberts have been pubhshed. Among others 
relating to the conduct of crews were a prohibition 



BUCCANEERS, EREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 89 

of gaming " at cards or dice for money " ; a require- 
ment that lights be put out at eight o'clock ; that 
" pieces, pistols, and cutlass be kept clean and fit 
for service"; "no boy or woman to be allowed 
amongst them "; deserting the ship or quarters in 
battle to be punished by death or marooning, and 
so on. 

The more famous Captain Kidd began his career 
with privateering in the West Indies, and it was 
Lord Bellamont, Governor of Barbados, who secured 
his commission as commander of the Adventure, to 
put down pirates. As is well known, he turned 
pirate himself, but his exploits in that character 
were performed on the other side of the world. 

Piracy continued all through the eighteenth cen- 
tury and into the present one on the pathways of 
commerce between the Old World and the New, and 
between Europe and the East, affecting the West 
Indian trade incidentally and having constant lurk- 
ing-places among the islands. 

Passing reference has been made to marooning as 
a penalty on board pirate ships, which reminds us 
to go back to another peculiar incident in West 
Indian experience. The word " maroon " has been 
variously explained. Almost as soon as negroes 
were introduced into the islands and upon the Span- 
ish Main as slaves, they were so inhumanly treated 
that the most daring of them ran away and estab- 
lished wild communities of their own in the woods 
and mountains. These came to be called cimar- 
rons, which seems to have meant mountain-dwellers, 
though restricted in its application to these fugi- 



90 THE WEST INDIES 

tives. In the uncertain orthography of the time the^ 
EngHsh spelled the word " simeron," ** symaron," 
and " simaran," and runaway negroes are spoken of 
by this term in the description of Drake's landing 
at Darien. 

It is apparently a modification of this term that 
was applied to the negro slaves who fled to the 
woods when the EngHsh first took possession of 
Jamaica, for they were called maroons from the time 
they first established themselves as a dangerous ele- 
ment in the population of the island. As Jamaica 
came to be a great centre of the slave trade and her 
growing plantations were worked almost exclusively 
by slave labour under brutal task-masters, fugitives 
multiplied and the community of maroons became 
formidable enough to produce serious trouble, as we 
shall see when considering the history of Jamaica 
more in detail. 

The maroons being in effect outcasts, a verb seems 
to have been made of the word to expi*ess the pro- 
cess of casting out. It was first applied to the 
practice of the buccaneers or the pirates in getting 
rid of the captives taken by them when they plun- 
dered towns, by setting them ashore on some unin- 
habited island and leaving them to their fate. This 
was an alternative to killing them, and there was 
occasionally a pirate who had a distaste for whole- 
sale slaughter when he did not consider it necessary. 
Marooning was also adopted as an alternative to 
death in punishing sailors for mutiny or other 
offences on board ship, not adequately requited by 
knocking down with a marlinspike or flogging with 



BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS 9 1 

a rope's end. By a peculiarity of piratical etymol- 
ogy the victim of this process and not its perpetrator 
was called a marooner. The term has come to be 
applied to anybody left on a lonely island in any 
part of the world, and in the South to picnic parties, 
who are said to go marooning. 




CHAPTER IX 

FIGHTING FOR POSSESSION 

EARLY in the seventeenth century Spain's ex- 
clusive right to possession in the West Indies 
came to be seriously contested; by 1658 the Pope 
formally gave it up, and in 1670 it was abandoned 
by Spain herself. For nearly two centuries there 
was almost continuous war in which one and another 
of the colonising powers were engaged, and there 
were frequent contests for the possession of islands, 
especially those of the Lesser Antilles. As we have 
already seen, some of the original colonies were 
established by conquest. 

The nine years' truce ended in 161 8, and hostili- 
ties were renewed between Spain and the Nether- 
lands. England made a treaty with the latter 
power in 1625 which brought her into collision with 
Spain afresh. It was in 1629 that the Spanish fleet 
made the attack upon St. Christopher and drove out 
both English and French settlers, and in 1632 that 
the Dutch took Tobago and in 1634 Curagao. After 
the French took nominal possession of Guadeloupe, 
Dominica, and Martinique in 1635, France was at 

92 



MGffTWG FOR POSSESSTON 93 

war with Spain, which had previously made peace 
with England. In 1638 the Spanish made a descent 
upon St. Martin, which was jointly occupied by the 
French and Dutch, and took forcible possession, 
but it was afterwards recovered and the formal divi- 
sion of the island between Dutch and French was 
made in 1648. Although Spain and England were 
nominally at peace in 1638, an English expedition 
attacked and plundered the town of Santiago de la 
Vega in Jamaica, and in retaliation a Spanish fleet 
from Havana cleared out the infant settlement at 
New Providence in the Bahamas. 

During the Commonwealth time the royalist senti- 
ment was strong in the British West Indies, and 
there was almost a revolt under Governor Wil- 
loughby in Barbados; but a fleet came out with 
Admiral Ayscue and settled the trouble, incident- 
ally capturing some Dutch vessels on the way. 
Cromwell adopted a vigorous policy in dealing with 
the pretensions of Spain, and it was at this time that 
the fleet was sent against Hispaniola and com- 
promised by capturing Jamaica, which Spain tried 
in vain to recover in 1658. There was a treaty of 
peace between France and Spain in 1660, and the 
restoration of Charles II. also brought peace between 
England and France; but in 1665 England fell out 
with the Dutch, who were joined the next year by 
France. Then the English and French in St. Kitt's 
took to fighting. The French got the upper hand 
and drove the English out, but a fleet came up from 
Barbados and reversed the process. At the same 
time the French captured Antigua and Montserrat, 



94 THE WEST INDIES 

but by the treaty of Breda in 1667 they were re- 
stored to England, and the old division of St. Kitt's 
was re-established. Trouble kept up for some years 
with privateering and depredations upon the thriving 
trade of the Dutch, but no further changes of pos- 
session among the islands took place until the war 
between France and Holland in 1688, when the ac- 
cession of William of Orange brought England into 
the contest on the Dutch side. The French again 
drove the English out of St. Kitt's and seized St. 
Eustatius, while the EngHsh made unsuccessful at- 
tacks upon Guadeloupe. The peace of Ryswick, 
1697, restored the old condition, the Dutch retaining 
St. Eustatius and the French and English still divid- 
ing St. Christopher. 

From 1702 to 171 5 there was a war, with England 
and Holland on one side and France and Spain on 
the other, and much privateering and plundering 
went on, but there was no change of territorial pos- 
session, except that the English drove the French 
out of St. Kitt's this time, and by the treaty of 
Utrecht the island was finally ceded to Great Britain. 
Jacques Cassard, the famous French corsair, in the" 
guise of a patriotic privateer, captured St. Eustatius 
and Curacao, but only for the purpose of extorting 
a ransom. There was a fierce contest between 
France and England for the possession of the Carib- 
bees during the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 
1763. In the meantime, Spain and Holland had 
been losing prestige, and were no longer rated as 
formidable powers. 

It was in this contest between France and Eng- 



FIGHTING FOR POSSESSION 95 

land that Admiral Rodney and Sir Samuel Hood 
first came to the front as British naval commanders. 
At the beginning, the French were in possession of 
all the southern Caribbees, leaving Barbados and 
Trinidad out of the category. The English captured 
Guadeloupe in 1759, before the arrival of the home 
fleet, and held it till the end of the war. Rodney 
sailed from Barbados for Martinique in January, 
1762, with eighteen ships of the line and a consider- 
able force of soldiers. The island capitulated, and 
the conquest was followed up with that of Grenada, 
Dominica, Tobago, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia in 
succession. Spain was involved in the quarrel at the 
time, and in May, 1762, Admiral Pococke laid siege 
to Havana, and in a month Morro Castle was re- 
duced, and soon after the Governor-General of Cuba 
capitulated, and Lord Albemarle took possession 
with land forces. These naval victories contributed 
powerfully to the peace of February, 1763. By the 
treaty of Paris, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. 
Lucia were restored to France, and Cuba was left to 
Spain in exchange for Florida, while Dominica, St. 
Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago were ceded to Great 
Britain. 

The next contest for the possession of islands in 
the Lesser Antilles came after France had joined 
the United States in 1778 in their struggle for inde- 
pendence from British power. The first move was 
the capture of Dominica by the French, that island 
lying conveniently between their two principal pos- 
sessions, Guadeloupe and Martinique. The English 
retaliated by seizing St. Lucia. A fleet came out 



96 THE WEST INDIES 

from France, under Count de Grasse, who afterwards 
went up the Atlantic coast to help the American 
cause, and one from England, under Admiral Byron. 
The French got to work first and took Grenada and 
St. Vincent and spread alarm among the other 
islands. Rodney, over in England, was aroused, 
and pleaded for the command in the West Indies. 
He was not politically in favour, but the disasters 
finally induced the Government to send him out to 
replace Byron. But Spain had taken a hand in the 
conflict, and by way of diversion Rodney captured 
a Spanish squadron off Cape Finisterre and another 
off Cape St. Vincent, and went to the relief of Gib- 
raltar, sending part of his fleet into the Mediterranean 
before proceeding to western waters. It was late in 
March, 1780, when he arrived off St. Lucia, where 
he found a French fleet of thirty vessels, under 
Count de Guichen. Though his own ships num- 
bered only seventeen, he made two attempts to en- 
gage the Frenchman. He attributed his failure to 
force a fight to the inefficiency of his own men, and 
when De Guichen took refuge at St. Eustatius and 
afterwards got away, he put them through a course 
of training. 

Late in the year Great Britain declared war upon 
Holland for assisting the American colonies, and 
Rodney getting word of this pounced upon St. Eus- 
tatius, though the French fleet had departed, seized 
all the vessels in the harbour, confiscated all the 
property in sight, and ordered the inhabitants to 
quit the island. After the Seven Years' War the 
English and French had tried to put a stop to con- 



FIGHTING FOR POSSESSION 97 

traband trading, but the Dutch and the Danes had 
kept it up, and St. Eustatius and St. Thomas had 
prospered by the misfortunes and the quarrels of 
their neighbours. The Dutch had always been 
active as smugglers and contraband traders, and 
were disliked by those who had suffered by their 
enterprise. Probably Rodney cared less for this 
than for the fact that harbour had just been given 
to his enemy. At all events he made St. Eusta- 
tius suffer, breaking up its commerce and selling 
its accumulated merchandise to traders from the 
English islands. But some of the merchants at St. 
Eustatius were Englishmen, many were Jews, and 
those of St. Kitt's had profitable dealings with them. 
Emissaries were sent to England who made trouble 
for Rodney with the authorities there. Politically, 
he still lacked favour, and, the French having suc- 
ceeded in retaking St. Eustatius and restoring it to 
the Dutchmen, a reaction set in, and the Admiral 
was recalled to England, where he arrived in Sep- 
tember, 1 78 1, sick and disappointed by his trials and 
the disfavour into which he had fallen. 

But the tide began to run against British fortunes 
in the western world. Lord Cornwallis surrendered 
at Yorktown, and De Grasse hastened back to the 
West Indies to play havoc among the English 
islands. He captured St. Kitt's and Nevis, Mont- 
serrat, Dominica, and St. Vincent with alarming 
rapidity, and was planning a scheme for routing the 
English out of the Antilles, with fine prospects of 
success. In this dire emergency Rodney was called 
in consultation again, and the upshot was that he 



98 THE WEST INDIES 

was sent out with a new fleet of twelve ships of the 
Hne at the special request of the King, to take the 
command over the head of Hood. He arrived at 
Barbados February 19, 1782, and soon learned that 
De Grasse was off Martinique preparing for the con- 
quest of Jamaica, with a Spanish fleet of fourteen 
ships waiting to join him near the coast of Hispan- 
iola. De Grasse himself had thirty-five vessels 
under his command, with 5000 troops on board, 
and his flagship, the Ville de Paris, was regarded 
by the French as the most powerful warship afloat. 
Rodney, after joining Hood and receiving some 
reinforcements, had thirty-six vessels, with the 
Formidable as his flagship, and he took up his 
station at St. Lucia, which still remained in Eng- 
lish hands, to watch the movements of the enemy. 
On the 8th of April he got word that De Grasse 
was setting sail for Hispaniola to take up the 
Spanish contingent for the descent upon Jamaica. 

The doughty Admiral, who had his own reputa- 
tion to vindicate as well as British interests in the 
West Indies to rescue from peril, put boldly forth, 
and on the 12th he overhauled the French fleet off 
Dominica. By skilful manoeuvring he divided the 
enemy's force and cut into the midst of his ships with 
a furious fire from both sides, and as the sun went 
down De Grasse and his terrible Ville de Paris sur- 
rendered. A number of his vessels were sunk and 
others were captured, but a considerable portion of 
the fleet was allowed to escape, for which Rodney 
was criticised by Admiral Hood and attacked by 
his enemies in England. 



FIGHTING FOR POSSESSION 99 

But he had won a great victory and saved the 
British West Indies, and though Admiral Pigot had 
been sent out to supersede him his work was done, 
and he was received with great acclamation when he 
got back to England, and was made Lord Rodney 
with a pension of 10,000 dollars a year. By the 
treaty of Versailles England got back all the islands 
which she held at the beginning of the war except 
Tobago, which France was allowed to add to her 
former possessions. 

Now there were ten years of peace and of great 
material progress, but in 1793 France was again at 
war with England and Holland. The first thing the 
English did was to capture Tobago, and when in 
January, 1794, Sir John Jervis arrived out with his 
British fleet he proceeded to force the surrender of 
Martinique, St. Lucia, and Guadeloupe. In 1796, 
Spain joined France in the conflict, with the result 
that the English sent an expedition from Martinique 
and wrested Trinidad away from her, and by the 
treaty of Amiens in 1802 they were allowed to keep 
it. The British fleet captured Curasao and the other 
Dutch islands in 1798 and dominated the Carib- 
bees and the Spanish Main, but the peace of Amiens 
restored the Dutch islands to Holland and the French 
islands to France, except that Great Britain was 
allowed this time to keep St. Lucia. The peace was 
short-lived, and in 1806 the English took Curasao 
again, but it was restored in 18 14, when a lasting 
peace was made. 

No other change of possession took place during 
the contest of 1803-14, but there was an incident of 



100 THE WEST INDIES 

no small interest in West Indian history. At the 
beginning of 1805, Napoleon planned his great naval 
stroke of a combined attack upon England by the 
fleets of France and Spain. They were distributed 
at Toulon, Cadiz, Rochefort, and Brest, and were 
to effect their union at Martinique, which, of course, 
it was the business of the British naval forces to pre- 
vent. Nelson was in the Mediterranean with his eye 
on Admiral Villeneuve at Toulon, but he had to 
withdraw occasionally for supplies, and once when 
he was not looking Villeneuve took French leave 
and escaped past Gibraltar into the open. Nelson 
waited till he knew which way he had gone before 
pursuing and was delayed some weeks; and then he 
put out with all speed for the West Indies. He 
arrived at Barbados June 4th, to the enormous relief 
of the alarmed population, which knew of the pres- 
ence in the Caribbees of the dreadful French fleet, 
or some part of it. It had not effected the junction 
of its forces, but Villeneuve was off Antigua, though 
Nelson by false information was sent down to Trini- 
dad in pursuit of him. Getting scared, the French- 
man put back, and as soon as the Englishman got' 
wind of it he was after him. We know what fol- 
lowed, Trafalgar and the death of Nelson, but this 
was not his only visit to the West Indies. He 
was cruising there twenty years before, and had first 
come with Lord Hood in 1783, just after the Rod- 
ney days. It was in the little island of Nevis that 
he married the widow Nisbet in 1787. 

There was a very important change in the owner- 
ship of one island at this period, which was not 



FIGHTING FOR POSSESSION lOI 

incidental to the war between France and England, 
but an indirect consequence of the French Revolu- 
tion. French settlers, as we know, got possession 
of Tortuga and the western end of Haiti in the old 
buccaneering days, and by the treaty of Ryswick in 
1697 this territory was ceded to France. During 
the agitation following the French Revolution there 
was a rising of the blacks in Haiti, and when the 
menace of a British invasion from Jamaica came, in 
1794, they were brought to the support of the French 
authority by an emancipation of the slaves. The 
next year the Spanish part of the island was ceded 
to France. The agitation continued with the result 
that the whole island practically gained its inde- 
pendence in 1 801. The western part actually estab- 
lished its independence in 1804, the rest remaining 
nominally under French authority until 1808, when 
it was recovered by Spain with the aid of British 
troops, and retained until the revolution of 1821 
made an independent republic of it. 

This brings us substantially to the final division 
of the spoils of Columbus's first discoveries. Spain re- 
tained Cuba and Puerto Rico until the chronic revolt 
against her oppressive rule culminated in war with 
the United States in 1898, which swept away the 
last vestige of her American possessions. The first 
of her colonies, the old island of Hispaniola, contains 
the two independent republics of Haiti and Santo 
Domingo. Jamaica, all the Bahamas, and the greater 
part of the Lesser Antilles belong to Great Britain 
as the result of colonisation and conquest. France 
still holds the important islands of Guadeloupe, with 



I02 



THE WEST INDIES 



its pendants, Desirade, Marie Galante, and Les 
Saintes, Martinique, and, as dependencies of Guade- 
loupe, St. Bartholomew and part of St. Martin, in 
the northern Caribbees. Holland retains Curagao, 
Aruba, and Buen Aire, off the coast of Venezuela, 
with Saba, St. Eustatius, and part of St, Martin in 
the northern Caribbees as dependencies of the same 
colony. Denmark first got possession of St. Thomas 
as a trading station, and acquired Santa Cruz and St. 
John by purchase, and has held them through all the 
wars and contests without even the necessity of de- 
fending them. The United States for the first time, 
as the result of the Cuban war, put its foot on the 
junction of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the 
centre of the great bow that guards the Caribbean 
Sea and the approaches of the American isthmus, 
and Puerto Rico became her territory. 




CHAPTER X 

WEST INDIAN SLAVERY 

THE Spaniards who first took possession in the 
West Indies were in quest of earthly treasures. 
The conversion of the poor benighted heathen was 
subordinate to that even in the mind of the pious 
Columbus and of his great patrons Ferdinand and 
Isabella, who invested so liberally in his risky enter- 
prise. But while the Spaniards could endure hard- 
ship and privation in this quest, they did not like to 
toil for the treasures. When their effort to extract 
them by the labour of the natives failed, through 
the natives* preference for death if they could not 
have liberty, they began the importation of African 
slaves to work the mines of Hispariiola. 

At that time, Portugal claimed possession of the 
African coast and was the first to engage in the slave 
trade. The victims were already slaves in Northern 
Africa, and were bought from Moorish and other 
native masters, but it was not long before kidnapping 
began to be resorted to down on the western coast. 
Some of the slaves had been sold in Portugal and in 
Spain, but the demand from the West Indies gave 

103 



I04 THE WEST INDIES 

the first strong impetus to the traffic, and in 15 17 
an edict of the Spanish Government authorised 
the importation of 4000 annually into Hispaniola. 
When the mining fever subsided through lack of 
profit or the greater attractions of El Dorado on 
" the Main," the negroes were put to work on the 
growing plantations, and were introduced into Cuba 
and Jamaica. Even the good Las Casas, in his pity 
for the disappearing aborigines, countenanced the 
substitution of slaves from Africa, though he re- 
pented when he realised the consequences. The 
Portuguese did not long enjoy a monopoly of trading 
in human commodities. The roving traders of Eng- 
land, France, and the Netherlands took a hand, and 
kidnapping became the easiest and most profitable 
method of obtaining the supply. It was then that 
Sir John Hawkins attained the evil celebrity which 
his naval services could not efface, as a slave-trader; 
but it was not until the development of the planta- 
tion system in the next century that the traffic as- 
sumed large proportions, and slavery was planted 
on an extensive scale in the West Indies. 

Though sugar-cane had been brought by Colum- 
bus, sugar in Europe was still a medicament bought 
by the ounce from the apothecary, or at most a 
costly luxury for the rich; and the culture in the 
islands was of slow growth. Cotton had been used 
by the aborigines to a limited extent in simple 
fabrics, and it had been introduced into Europe from 
" Calicut " and elsewhere in the Orient; but it was 
long before its cultivation became a systematic in- 
dustry, and then it was almost confined to Jamaica 



IVEST INDIAN SLAVERY 105 

and some small islands after they became English. 
Tobacco made its way gradually as a marketable 
commodity in Europe, and finally coffee was intro- 
duced as adapted to the soil and climate of the new 
Indies. 

It was not until after the English had colonised 
Barbados that the development of the sugar planta- 
tion began ; it received a tremendous impulse after 
the taking of Jamaica, and it soon began to divide 
the field with tobacco in Cuba. The great price of 
sugar in Europe and the cheapness of its production 
in the Indies made the cultivation of the cane and 
the extraction of its saccharine contents an extremely 
profitable business, but the labour of the negro was 
considered necessary to carry it on, and no one 
thought of using it otherwise than as slave labour. 
Plantations multiplied not only on the English 
islands and in Cuba and Hispaniola, but on the 
French islands and to a less extent those occupied 
by the Dutch ; and an enormous impulse was given 
to the slave trade. Sugar was the great industry 
from Barbados to Santa Cruz and in Jamaica and 
Cuba, varied with coffee in Martinique, cotton in 
Jamaica, and tobacco in Cuba as the great staples; 
and Europeans who invested their money in large 
plantations and bought many slaves acquired vast 
fortunes in a few years and lived like nabobs. 

Bryan Edwards, the historian of the British colo- 
nies in the West Indies, declares that from 1680 to 
1786 not less than 2,130,000 blacks were imported 
from Africa, of whom 610,000 were landed in Ja- 
maica ; and the traffic began long before that period 



I06 THE WEST INDIES 

and continued long after it. In the days of the 
smugglers and buccaneers negro slaves were a con- 
spicuous article in the traffic and plunder of the time, 
and were considered a perfectly legitimate commod- 
ity, without which other business than piracy could 
hardly go on in the great archipelago. The wretched 
Africans were scarcely looked upon as human beings, 
and were brought over the seas crowded and huddled 
in the holds of vessels, where many died, to be 
dumped overboard like refuse. Probably no artist 
in words or colours could exaggerate the " horrors 
of the middle passage," while beings who claimed 
to be devout Christians and used the language of 
such commanded the overloaded slavers, bound from 
the Guinea coast to the West Indies, and alas! 
sometimes to the British colonies on the continent 
of America which became the United States. 

And herded on the great plantations in the islands, 
these creatures were treated like cattle. Sometimes 
cattle are treated extremely well, and it is policy so 
to treat those that work ; but sometimes human cattle 
are not submissive. Many of the owners of large 
plantations, especially those in Jamaica, were absen- 
tees who squandered their substance in luxurious 
living in London and left their West Indian estates 
in charge of agents, who employed overseers and 
slave-drivers. The few white people of the islands, 
the planters and their representatives and employees, 
were practically rulers of the land, and the far-off 
authority of the home government gave little heed 
to their doings. We know the effect of arbitrary 
power and unrestrained control of the strong over 



JVEST INDIAN SIA VER Y 



107 



the helpless upon the average nature of man, espe- 
cially the adventurous type of man that peopled the 
tropical colonies. That there were terrible cruelties 
in many cases need not be said, and of the horrors 
of plantation life in slave lands and in slavery times 
there have been many lurid pictures. Under the 
" black code " of Jamaica the slave had no rights 
of property and few of person, and little protection 
from outrage. His testimony was not legal evidence 
against any white men, and he could be unmercifully 
flogged, maimed, and maltreated with impunity; 
but if he showed violence toward his keeper, torture 
or death was the almost certain penalty. Gradual 
burning alive, beginning at the feet, was a legal 
punishment on a second conviction for beating a 
white man, and all manner of tortures were used to 
compel abject submission of the slave to his task- 
master. 

It is no wonder that the maroons were constantly 
recruited by fugitives from the plantations and be- 
came a formidable power in the mountains of Ja- 
maica, committing depredations and atrocities and 
spreading terror among the white population from 
time to time; and it is not strange that Jamaica was 
disturbed at frequent intervals in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries by insurrections of slaves, 
and that the whites were constantly alarmed by the 
menace of risings, for their human cattle outnum- 
bered them about fifty to one. The state of things 
was not so bad in the smaller English islands, which 
had not been so much the resort of buccaneers and 
reckless adventurers, or so largely colonised by con- 



I08 THE WEST INDIES 

victs and cutthroats, but it was bad enough. 
Nothing was done to *' improve the condition ** of 
the blacks. The English Church did not recognise 
them as baptisable human beings, and teaching 
them was severely discountenanced. In the French 
islands, the general treatment of slaves seems to 
have been about as harsh and about as liable to bar- 
barous cruelty as in those under British sovereignty ; 
but the Catholic priests did credit them with souls 
and made some effort to save them from perdition, 
though never dreaming that they were entitled to 
liberty in this world. 

Let us do the much-abused Spaniard one little 
measure of justice. After slavery became an estab- 
lished institution in his colonies, the negroes were 
not so badly treated as in Jamaica and Barbados, or 
even in Martinique and Santa Cruz. The Spaniard 
became a real colonist in the West Indies. He lived 
on his plantation, and peasants came out from An- 
dalusia and Catalonia and from the Basque prov- 
inces and settled in Cuba and Espanola and Puerto 
Rico. The Spaniard became acclimatised and 
learned to work and attend to business in his tropi- 
cal home, and as a consequence a majority of the 
present natives of Cuba and Puerto Rico are whites, 
or Creoles, while in the other islands the negro 
vastly preponderates in the population. The pres- 
ence of working white men and the direct interest 
and supervision of owners living on their estates 
certainly mitigated slavery in the Spanish West In- 
dies, where the negroes had certain recognised and 
legally protected rights. Not only did the Church 



WEST INDIAN SLAVERY 



109 



look after their souls, but the State treated them as 
human beings, albeit in abject servitude. Among 
the rights guaranteed to them was that of free mar- 
riage, the purchase of their own freedom by labour, 
and the holding of property. 

Except in the island of Haiti, the slave population 
would have diminished constantly but for the con- 
tinual importation of fresh supplies. Most of the 
negro women of the early slave-trade were landed 
in Hispaniola, and the enterprising traffickers of a 
later day dealt mostly in able-bodied men. Even 
when women were brought over for the deliberate 
purpose of breeding slaves there was no natural in- 
crease of the race, but rather a falling off, until the 
present century. The agitation for the suppression 
of the African slave-trade began in England toward 
the end of the last century, and was carried on with 
great vigour under the lead of Wilberforce, Clark- 
son, and other philanthropic men, who met with 
the usual opposition to great reforms. Denmark was 
the first to take practical action, and she declared the 
slave trade unlawful in 1792. It was abolished in 
Great Britain and her colonies in 1807, and France 
and Holland soon followed, while Spain brought up 
the rear in 1820. There was a great deal of contra- 
band traffic after the formal abolition, especially in 
Cuba, whose demand for labour was not well sup- 
plied. It has been said that not less than 500,000 
Africans were brought to the island and sold into 
slavery after the traffic was prohibited, while Hum- 
boldt estimated the total importation before 1820 at 
413,500. 



no THE WEST INDIES 

The abolitionists were not content with procuring 
the prohibition of the African slave-trade, but became 
emancipators and kept up the agitation for putting 
an end to human slavery altogether, which, of course, 
was regarded as peculiarly radical and visionary. 
The planters had no doubt that it would be ruinous 
to the West Indian colonies. Emancipation had 
already been effected in Haiti as the result of the 
French Revolution and the turmoil that followed, 
and it produced restlessness among the blacks in the 
other French islands. In Martinique it almost came 
to an insurrection. The abolition of the slave trade 
had its effect in arousing hopes of freedom, and still 
another disturbing element had come in. Protest- 
ant missionaries of the dissenting denominations had 
been working among the negroes and instilling into 
them the heretical notion that they had souls worth 
saving, and were entitled to have the gospel preached 
unto them. These things, even when accompanied 
by promises of joy in another world, were calculated 
to produce discontent with their lot in this life 
among the poor creatures whose humanity was thus 
imprudently recognised. The planters were dis- 
turbed by this continual interference with the old 
order of things, and when the flogging of women 
and the using of the slave-driver's whip in the fields 
were prohibited, and they were required to manumit 
slaves who wished to buy their freedom, they be- 
came seriously alarmed. Many of the negroes knew 
what was going on in their behalf, and began to 
agitate on their own account. One free black fellow 
in Barbados, named Washington Franklin, made 



I 



WEST INDIAN SLA VER Y III 

eloquent speeches which led the slaves to believe 
that their freedom was at hand. 

Finally, in 1833, the pestilent abolitionists in Eng- 
land got through their Act of Parliament declaring 
an end of slavery in the British colonies on and after 
August I, 1834, and providing that household serv- 
ants should continue in a relation of apprenticeship 
to their masters for four years and field hands for 
six years thereafter. All children born after the 
date of emancipation were free, and by subsequent 
legislation the qualified servitude by apprenticeship 
was terminated for all on August i, 1838. 

Slavery continued in the French islands until the 
fall of Louis Philippe in 1848, when the revolution- 
ary government abolished it. Denmark had pro- 
vided in 1847 that from the 28th of July of that year 
all children born of slaves should be free, and at the 
end of twelve years from that date slavery should 
cease in the Danish colonies. This postponement 
caused discontent and there was an uprising in Santa 
Cruz. A mob of negroes marched into Christiansted 
threatening slaughter, and the governor hastened 
over from St. Thomas and tried to put it down by 
declaring that the slaves were free, and asking them 
to disperse and enjoy the boon of liberty in quiet. 
They doubted his authority or good faith, and had 
to be put down by force, Spanish soldiers coming 
from Puerto Rico to help in the process. The gov- 
ernor's declaration of emancipation was confirmed 
by the home government as the easiest and safest 
way of allaying the trouble. 

Slavery continued in the Dutch islands until 



112 THE WEST INDIES 

1863, when it was replaced by ten years of compul' 
sory labour for compensation, bringing complete 
freedom in 1873. A law was passed in 1870 giving 
freedom in Cuba to all slaves over sixty years of 
age and to all children born after it took effect, but 
internal difficulties prevented the execution of this 
measure; and in 1880 the Cuban Emancipation Act 
was approved at Madrid, which put an end to slav- 
ery altogether six years later. In the meantime all 
slaves in Puerto Rico had been freed on the 23d 
of March, 1873. It was on October 6, 1886, that 
slavery in the West Indies came to an end. 

The effect of emancipation was different in the 
different islands. It was disastrous to the absentee 
planters of Jamaica, for instance. It was not easy 
to get the freed negroes to work in sufficient num- 
bers, and the cost of labour increased, while the one 
great interest of sugar production was depressed 
from other causes. Estates became encumbered, 
expenses could not be maintained, and plantations 
fell into neglect, while their owners in Europe fell 
into bankruptcy. The negroes began to get posses- 
sion of land, the whites began to emigrate, and the 
prosperous days of Jamaica seemed to have departed. 
The greatest drawback, however, was the existence 
of large plantations devoted to a single industry and 
owned by absentees, and a lack of enterprise and 
willingness to live on the island and attend to busi- 
ness on the part of English landowners. 

To some extent there was a similar effect in the 
other English islands. Where there was unoccupied 
land, as in Trinidad and Dominica, the negroes 



WEST INDIAN SLA VER V 1 1 3 

showed a disposition to desert the plantations where 
they had been in servitude and to set up for them- 
selves in a small way, leaving the owners to whistle 
for labour. To some extent they called it in from 
over seas in the form of coolies from India and China, 
who worked under contract for a term of years; but 
the prosperity of the planters was not what it had 
been. In Barbados, which stands apart from the 
other islands, the land was practically all in posses- 
sion and under cultivation, and the freed negroes 
had to work for their former owners, or perish. 
Barbados suffered less than the other islands from 
the upset of the labour system, and but for the gen- 
eral depression of sugar would have continued to 
prosper. In fact, it has continued to prosper fairly. 
In the French islands, the general effect of emanci- 
pation was much the same as in the English colonies, 
but there the whites have become more easily recon- 
ciled to the small holdings of land by the negroes 
and mestizos, and less addicted to abandoning their 
island homes. 

The least unfavourable consequences were felt in 
the Spanish colonies, where the white population 
predominated, and where the relations between 
whites and blacks had been more nearly those of 
sympathy if not of equality. Each race adapted 
itself to the changed conditions, and comparatively 
little trouble has arisen from the labour question 
in Cuba and Puerto Rico. 

Slavery is responsible for the general character of 
the population of the West Indies, and especially 
for the great preponderance of negroes and those 

8 



114 



THE WEST INDIES 



of mixed blood in nearly all the islands, and it is 
the primary cause of the problems presented in the 
government of the colonies there. A ghastly ex- 
hibition of the consequences of the experiment of 
self-government for those unprepared for it has been 
going on in Haiti nearly all the present century. 




CHAPTER XI 

THE BAHAMAS OR LUCAYAN ISLANDS 

THE submarine extension of our continent 
stretches in a long and relatively narrow 
plateau from the coast of Florida south-easterly to 
the deep channels off the shores of Cuba and Haiti. 
This great platform from which the Bahama Islands 
rise is more than seven hundred miles long and from 
one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles wide; 
and its outer declivity plunges abruptly to depths 
of 12,000 to 15,000 feet. From that huge rampart 
its general level slopes gradually downward toward 
the west and south-west, till it sinks off into the 
abyss of 10,000 feet or more toward the Windward 
Passage between Cuba and Haiti, the depth dimin- 
ishing from there westward to 6000 in the Old 
Bahama Channel, about 4000 in the New Bahama 
Channel, and 1000 in the Straits of Florida over 
the ridge whose farther slope sinks into the depths 
of the Gulf of Mexico. 

On the surface of this peninsula plateau beneath 
the waves there are banks and shoals of varying ex- 
tent and altitude, and it is penetrated here and there 
by fiords and deep valleys. Near its northern part 

115 



Il6 THE WEST INDIES 

the Providence Channel cuts in from the ocean on 
the east and from the Florida Straits on the west, 
and the two branches coalesce in the submarine gulf 
called the ** Tongue of the Ocean," which extends 
lengthwise of the plateau. There are also in the 
watery depths what would be called land-locked 
lakes, or bays, if their margins were above the sur- 
face. From this huge but broken platform rise the 
peaks and pinnacles whose tops reach the sunlight 
and the air, and constitute the hundreds of rocks 
and reefs and the few habitable islands which we 
know as the Bahamas. For the most part, these 
have been built up by the incessant growth through 
centuries of the coral polyp, and the growth goes 
on still, changing their contour from age to age. 
The process of construction which began when this 
region first sank beneath the waves can be watched 
and studied to-day. Sometimes the coral builders 
work up columns from the bottom, from thirty to 
fifty feet high and twelve to fifteen feet in diameter, 
which slowly spread at the surface, like an expand- 
ing mushroom, to a breadth of one hundred feet or 
more. Those in proximity coalesce, and amid 
crumbling and cementing by the currents and the 
calcareous sands, they form islands in whose founda- 
tions are caves and vaults and weird galleries and 
corridors, where shapeless monsters lurk. These 
caverns exist beneath all the islands, and in the por- 
ous substructure the waters of the ocean ebb and 
flow, often lifting and letting down with every tide 
the fresh water of wells. And around the islands 
are the silent labyrinths of 



THE BAHAMAS OR LUC AY AN ISLANDS WJ 

" the coral grove 
Where the purple mullet and the goldfish rove," 

and a thousand fantastic forms which simulate vege- 
tation and make the " gardens of the sea." 

The islands consist of the calcareous rock formed 
of coral and shells and the cementing substance that 
comes from abrasion of the same material, and of 
the light soil which ages have accumulated from the 
growth and decay of vegetation upon the surface. 
There is no sign of primitive or volcanic formation, 
but only this result of coral growth. The general 
level is but a few feet above the water, though it 
rises here and there in a ridge or a hill of a hundred 
feet or more, and reaches its culmination on Cat 
Island in an altitude of less than four hundred feet. 
The limestone exposed to the air is hard, but below 
the surface it is easily quarried into blocks by sawing, 
and these harden from exposure. The soil which 
covers it in part, and which really has come from its 
substance, is strangely fertile in many places. On a 
few of the larger islands there are forest growths of 
hard wood, as mahogany, ironwood, and lignum- 
vitae, and also of pitch-pine and palm. On some there 
is rank vegetation of a subtropical kind, and the soil 
is easily cultivated to the production of many fruits 
and vegetables. There are tamarinds, oranges, 
lemons, limes, citrons, pineapples, pomegranates, 
bananas, figs, and others; but pineapples and 
oranges are those chiefly grown for the market. 
There are also melons, yams, potatoes, cassava, pep- 
per, ginger, coffee, cocoa, indigo, cotton, tobacco, 



Il8 THE WEST INDIES 

corn, peas, etc., more or less raised upon this cal- 
careous soil. 

There is variety of life in the waters, of turtles, 
fish, molluscs, and all manner of inhabitants of 
shells; and the gathering of sponges, pearls, and 
ambergris has been among the occupations of na- 
tives and settlers time out of mind ; but the land 
fauna is scanty. The " dumb dog," as the Span- 
iards called it, of the aborigines was probably the 
raccoon, and there were a few small quadrupeds and 
reptiles, including the ugly but harmless iguana. 
There is no profusion of birds, but among those 
worth noticing are the flamingo, the parrot, and 
the humming-bird. Cattle, horses, sheep, and 
domestic fowl, though not indigenous, thrive in 
the climate. And that climate is of the mild and 
genial kind of the verge of the tropic zone sur- 
rounded by the water and the air of the ocean. 
The temperature in summer ranges from 75° to 
88° Fahrenheit, and in winter perhaps ten degrees 
lower. There is a wet season from May to Octo- 
ber which varies in wetness, and the rest of the year 
is delightful with warm sunshine and balmy breezes. 
Here is the paradise of delicate lungs and sensitive 
throats for those from harsher cHmes, though the 
native negroes are often the victims of pulmonary 
weakness. The Bahamas are in the occasional track 
of the hurricane, which loses much of its strength 
by the time it reaches this latitude, but sometimes 
sweeps with destructive fury along their scattered 
length. 

In noting the general arrangement and character- 



THE BAHAMAS OR LUCAYAN ISLANDS II9 

istics of the principal islands, we will begin with that 
nearest the Florida coast, barely sixty miles off Palm 
Beach. It is the Great Bahama, which retains the 
native name of the whole group. It is long and 
narrow, but lies across the head of the plateau in- 
stead of along its length like most of the others. It 
has always been sparsely peopled and of little im- 
portance, and its present small population is mostly 
descended from a few Scotch planters and their 
slaves. To the east of it are Little and Great Abaco. 
Great Abaco was the Yucaya of the aborigines, who 
called themselves Yucayos. This is one of the most 
populous of the islands, having about 4000 inhabit- 
ants, mostly whites and descendants of loyalists who 
left the Carolinas after the revolutionary war. It 
is also one of the wooded islands which makes some 
use of its timber. Its chief village is Hopetown, 
built on a narrow peninsula. 

Below these islands, which stand at the head of the 
group, are the two branches of the Providence Chan- 
nel, and just where these flow into one lies the small 
but important island of New Providence. It is 
nearly oval in form, extending east and west, and is 
barely sixteen and a half miles long by six miles 
wide; but it contains a population of nearly 15,000, 
more than one fourth of that of the whole Bahama 
group. Two thirds of the inhabitants live in the 
town of Nassau, the capital of the colony and its 
one important port. It is the position of this island 
at the converging of the channels and in the narrow 
line of deep-water navigation, and the fact that its 
harbour will admit vessels of fifteen feet draught, 



I20 THE WEST INDIES 

while no other in all the islands has a depth of more 
than nine feet, that make it the site of the colonial 
capital and give it all its consequence. Near the 
north shore of New Providence, for nearly its whole 
length, runs a wooded ridge from eighty to one hun- 
dred and twenty feet high, upon the seaward slope of 
which, five and a half miles from its eastern end, is 
the picturesque and solidly built town of Nassau. 
About six and a half miles from the western end of 
the island, at a place called Cave Point, a spur from 
this northern ridge, known as " the Blue Hills," 
strikes inland, and on either side of it is a consider- 
able lake of brackish water that sways with the tide. 
The town of Nassau has at times a lively commerce, 
and affords facilities for docking and repairing ves- 
sels. Its buildings are of the limestone that is sawed 
into blocks when fresh and hardens afterwards. 
There is a modest Government House, a plain cathe- 
dral, several churches and chapels, the bishop's 
abode, a public library, an asylum and hospital, a 
military station, an institute, a charitable society, 
and several schools. 

The Berry Isles, just north of New Providence, 
are only occupied by a few pilots, and the Bemini 
Keys, to the west, are distinguished merely as the 
site of Ponce de Leon's delusive fountain of youth. 
To the east, however, is the long, crescent-shaped 
Eleuthera, — so named from the Eleuthera Croton, 
once valued for its medicinal properties, — a fertile, 
fairly peopled, and cultivated island, and the special 
garden of the pineapple. Harbour Island, close 
by, practically covered by Dunmore Town, with its 



THE BAHAMAS OR LUCAYAN ISLANDS 121 

2000 inhabitants in a space of two square miles, is a 
favourite health resort, and the place of residence of 
the wealthier planters of Eleuthera. To the south- 
east and separated by a few miles from Eleuthera is 
another long, curved island, though not so long or 
so curved, called by the name of Cat, because that 
animal runs wild upon it in a manner that may be 
harmless but is not necessary. Cat Island contains 
one hundred and sixty-five square miles of fairly 
fertile land, but it was wholly deserted in 1785 when 
one hundred loyalist emigrants from the United 
States with their slaves took possession. It now 
has a population of about 4000. Over on the west 
of the group, to the south-west of New Providence, 
stretching along that deep gulf called the " Tongue 
of the Ocean," but with a shallow expanse of water 
upon its margin, is Andros, the largest in area of 
the Bahama Islands, containing, it is said, about as 
much surface above water as all the rest. It is 
rather a group of islands, separated by narrow and 
shallow channels, and covered with swamps and 
forests. The shallow water about its shores and the 
utter lack of harbours make it of little use, and it 
has only about 1000 inhabitants, mostly negroes en- 
gaged in gathering sponges. It is the only island in 
all the Bahamas that has running streams. Dividing 
the space between Eleuthera and Cat on one side 
and Andros on the other, and acting as the crest to 
the barrier between the * ' Tongue of the Ocean ' ' and 
Exuma Sound, is a string of reefs terminating in 
Great Exuma Island, which with its imposing name 
is of small account. To the south of this is Long 



122 THE WEST INDIES 

Island, noted only for its length and as one of the 
stopping-places of Columbus, who called it Fernan- 
dina. But off to the east of this, with Rum Cay be- 
tween, standing as an outpost on the Atlantic marge 
of the plateau, is Watling Island, the San Salvador 
of the great discoverer. It is about twelve miles 
long by six wide, and its area is cut up by salt-water 
lagoons separated by low, wooded hills. It has a 
scattered and rather listless population of perhaps 
2000, mostly simple-minded negroes living in primi- 
tive fashion. 

Continuing down the range near its central line 
we find the group of Fortune, Crooked, and Acklin 
among the inhabited islands. They are separated 
by narrow and fordable passages and are nearer to 
being one island than Andros. Here, too, was a 
stopping-place of Columbus, who considered the 
group one island and named it Isabella. Fortune 
has, next to New Providence, the best port in the 
Bahamas, Pitt's Town, and consequently enjoys 
quite a flourishing trade with coasters and visiting 
steamers. This is due to its situation on the naviga- 
ble channel called Crooked Island Passage. Mari- 
guana is an insignificant piece of ground, and Great 
Inagua has few inhabitants, and those mostly con- 
centrated in Matthew Town. The Caicos and Turks, 
which have been politically separated from the Ba- 
hamas and attached to Jamaica since 1848, have a 
few weary inhabitants, who used to thrive on salt, 
but when the United States put a heavy duty on 
their chief product it closed their best market, and 
they have been obliged to gain a precarious liveli- 



THE BAHAMAS OR LUCAYAN ISLANDS 1 23 

hood from sand and water in some other way than 
evaporation. Turk's Islands are so named from a 
species of cactus, called Turk's-head, which has a 
fanciful resemblance to a gray head swathed in 
a turban. 

Off on the lower verge of the plateau by the deep 
channel that separates it from Cuba is Great Ragged 
Island, the last touched by Columbus before he 
landed on what he thought was Cipango, the realm 
of the Grand Khan. It is in a chain of ragged reefs, 
and is more thickly peopled than the rest of the 
lower islands, though it is rather arid and sandy, 
and supports only a small population. Another 
physical feature of the submarine peninsula worthy 
of passing notice is called Salt Key Bank, between 
the Florida Keys and Cuba, lying in fact on a sort 
of truncated triangular pyramid between the Straits 
of Florida, the Santarem Channel, west of Andros, 
and the New Bahama Channel, north of Cuba. 
Most of the ** banks " do not come to the surface of 
the water, and this one has an interior depression 
five or six fathoms below the surface, but its rim 
rises into the air in broken coralline reefs and sand- 
hills, which sometimes seem in the distance to move 
and shift in the sunlight like spectral craft under 
sail. All about the margins and scattered over the 
intermediate spaces of the Bahamas are strings and 
clusters of rocks and reefs and lonely islets, with here 
and there an inhabited space, but most of their life 
and activity are concentrated in about a dozen of the 
larger islands, along the two pathways of navigation. 
Providence Channel and Crooked Island Passage. 



124 THE WEST INDIES 

After his discovery of the island which he piously 
called Holy Saviour, Columbus wrote to his most 
Christian Majesty, Ferdinand of Spain: 

" This country excels all others as far as day surpasses 
night in splendour. The natives love their neighbours 
as themselves. Their conversation is the sweetest imag- 
inable ; their faces always smiHng ; and so gentle and 
affectionate are they that I swear to your Highness there 
is not a better people in the world." 

Seventeen years later, Governor Ovando, by direct 
authority of this most Christian Ferdinand, sent 
kidnappers to capture these gentle and affectionate 
people to work their lives out as slaves in the mines 
of Hispaniola. At first they were enticed with the 
promise of being taken to the " heavenly shores'* 
where their revered ancestors dwelt, and afterwards 
they were hunted with bloodhounds. Then for a 
hundred years and more, save for the wandering quest 
of Ponce de Leon for the miraculous fountain of Be- 
mini, which his successor, Perez de Ortubia, found as 
a purling spring with no other virtue than that of 
quenching ordinary thirst, these islands were left to 
the tireless polyps and to solitude. In 1629 and later 
the British made some feeble attempts at settlement 
at New Providence, which the Spaniards baffled, and 
in 1680 Charles H. assumed to grant that and neigh- 
bouring islands to George, Duke of Albemarle, Wil- 
liam Lord Craven, Sir George Carteret, John Lord 
Berkeley, Anthony Lord Ashley, and Sir Peter Colle- 
ton, as lords proprietors, with power to appoint a, 



THE BAHAMAS OR LUCAYAN ISLANDS 1 2$ 

governor and plant and develop a colony. A few 
respectable families were brought out ; but, what with 
pirates and Spaniards, the colony did not flourish, 
and in 1703 an expedition from Havana broke it up. 
For awhile the pirates had possession of New Provi- 
dence, and it was the headquarters of '' Bladcbeard " 
when his depredation upon the commerce of the 
British colonies cost him his head. In 171 8, some 
troops were sent out from England and new efforts 
were made to colonise, but without success, and 
desolation reigned again, interrupted only by the 
wreckers that came out from the Carolina coast and 
lurked among the passages to profit by the disasters 
of the sea. Near the end of the revolutionary war, 
the Spaniards took possession of the islands but did 
not hold them, and by the treaty of peace they were 
confirmed to Great Britain, and a few years later, in 
1787, the heirs of the old *' lords proprietors " were 
bought out at $10,000 each, and the Bahamas be- 
came a Crown colony. The settlers were largely 
loyalists and their slaves from the United States. 

Growth and progress were slow and uneventful 
before the civil war, but during that struggle Nassau 
had a great " boom "from blockade running. It 
became the place of landing arms and supplies for 
the Confederates and receiving cotton and other 
cargoes from vessels eluding the blockade, at Charles- 
ton, Wilmington, and other Southern ports. The 
business was risky but enormously profitable, lead- 
ing to extravagance and excitement at the staid little 
port of New Providence. After the war was over, 
this flurry subsided, and Nassau became a winter 



126 THE WEST INDIES 

resort and a fruit market. In 1866, it suffered ter- 
ribly from a hurricane. 

At least four fifths of the inhabitants of the Ba- 
hamas are negroes, with comparatively little inter- 
mixture of other blood. Conditions did not make 
their li^e so hard in slavery days as that of the 
slaves in the British Antilles, and it has been little 
different since. The social distinction between 
whites and blacks is almost as marked as ever, the 
freedmen have no political power, and as labourers 
they are generally paid by advances to meet their 
wants of living, and are kept in debt to their em- 
ployers; but they are mostly a happy and easy- 
going lot. Industries are little developed beyond 
the gathering of sponges and shells and the raising 
and shipping of fruit. Sisal has been introduced 
from Yucatan and is raised on a growing scale, but 
there is little plantation life. Of the total annual 
exports of i^ 124,011, according to the latest statis- 
tics, sponges figured at ^67,565, and pineapples at 
;^22,784. The total imports the same year were 
;^i72,58i in value. The trade is mostly with the 
United States. 

The government of the colony is lodged with a 
governor appointed in England, an Executive Coun- 
cil of nine and a Legislative Council of nine deriving 
their appointments and authority from the same 
source. They simply represent "the Crown." 
There is a Legislative Assembly of twenty-nine 
members elected by the people, but the suffrage is so 
qualified that it makes no trouble. One must have 
an estate of ;^500 to be eligible, and nobody can vote 



THE BAHAMAS OR LUC A VAN ISLANDS 1 27 

who is not a freeholder or a payer of taxes on prop- 
erty to the amount of about $100. Few negroes vote, 
and the Assembly is made up chiefly of the mer- 
chants and property-owners of New Providence. 
There are thirteen parishes in the colony, but they 
pertain only to a civil administration which emanates 
from the central authority. The English Church 
has been disestablished, and its membership is 
greatly exceeded by the Methodists and Baptists. 
There are practically no Roman Catholics. There 
are government schools and a Board of Education 
over which the governor presides. Many light- 
houses are maintained nowadays, which have gone 
far to ruin the old trade of the wreckers, which be- 
came quite legitimate, though subject to abuse, 
especially in the days when the escape of crews with 
their lives forfeited compensation for saving cargoes. 
The yearly revenue of the colony is about ;^65,ooo. 

The Caicos and Turk's Islands are governed by a 
commissioner and a council of five as an appanage 
of Jamaica. 

There is little evidence of growth or advancement 
in the political, social, or commercial life of the 
Bahamas. 




CHAPTER XII 

THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA 

WITH its western extremity at Cape Antonio 
pointing across the water toward the head- 
land of Yucatan (Cape Catoche), the island of Cuba 
has the appearance of being a projection from the 
Mexican peninsula; but the channel between, one 
hundred and twenty miles wide, has a depth of 
6000 feet, while that on the north between Cuba and 
Florida, while it is of nearly the same width, is less 
than a third as deep. In remote geological ages, the 
continential connection is believed to have existed on 
both sides, but the fossils of huge quadrupeds of 
vast antiquity found in Cuba are like those revealed 
in the same formations in the United States. Fol- 
lowing the dorsal curve of the island from Cape 
Antonio to the eastern point at Cape Maisi, Cuba 
is nine hundred miles long, though it is one hundred 
and forty miles less measured on a parallel of lati- 
tude. Its width varies between the tapering capes 
from forty to one hundred and twenty-five miles, 
but the average is about sixty miles. Statistics of 
area from different sources do not agree, but it is 
about 45,000 square miles for the island proper, to 

128 



%6 



z■^ 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA 1 29 

which over 2000 are to be added for the Isle of Pines, 
itself containing over 1200 square miles, and the 
thousand and more of fringing islets and reefs, a few 
of which have inhabited spots. 

The greater part of the area of Cuba consists of 
calcareous formation, similar to that of the reefs still 
growing on its borders, but this rests in the uplands 
upon an underlying skeleton of tertiary rocks, cov- 
ered in part by diorites and porphyries, and inter- 
spersed on the south-eastern coast with basalt and , 
trachyte. Here and there protrudes a primitive 
granite, but nowhere is there sign of volcanic prod- 
uct. The highest projection of the rocky skeleton 
is 'i. that eastern head of the island whose southern 
coast-line runs nearly due east and west from Cape 
Maisi to Cape Cruz. Here is a well defined moun- 
tain range, called the Sierra Maestra, springing 
abruptly from the water's edge and starting with 
the sharp headland at Cape Cruz, and rising in a 
series of terraces to the crest of Ojo del Toro, 3300 
feet high. Farther east it culminates in the Pico 
Tarquino, which is probably a corruption of Pico 
Turquino, " Blue Peak," of a height variously esti- 
mated from 6900 to 8400 feet, but never accurately 
measured. From this height there is a precipitous 
decline seaward, and a gradual slope landward in a 
broad plateau which declines into the valley of the 
Rio Cauto on the north. Continuing eastward the 
mountain system contracts into the Sierra del 
Cobre, which finally breaks into the circle of hills 
about Santiago Bay, and then sinks away into the 
marshy valley of the Rio Guantanamo. Poised on 



1 30 THE WEST INDIES 

the top of one of the ranges of " Copper [Cobre] 
Mountains " is a huge mass of conglomerate, which 
gives to that peak the name of La Gran Piedra, or 
Big Rock. 

Beyond a wide depression that lies eastward from 
these lofty sierras, there is a mountainous region of 
disordered masses, cut into groups or isolated peaks 
by river valleys, and sometimes culminating in those 
sharp crests called cuchillas, or" knives." One of 
these mountain masses, the Yunque (" Anvil ") de 
Baracoa, is a grand truncated cone 3300 feet high. 
Turning westward, we find these irregular elevations 
running parallel to the northern coast until, near the 
middle of the island, the whole upland structure falls 
away into a depression, only forty-five miles across 
from coast to coast, traversed in former times by a 
trocha, or trail, and in recent years by a railroad. 
This is a central plain bordered on both sides by low 
marshes. West of this depression the land rises again 
into hills, which are often broken by precipices and 
ravines into a mountainous aspect, but seldom reach 
an elevation of 1000 feet. There is a culminating 
point north-west of Trinidad, near the southern 
coast, called the Potrerillo, which is said to reach an 
altitude of 2900 feet. Near the northern coast, be- 
tween Matanzas and Havana, the Pan de Matanzas 
is 1300 feet high, and west of Havana there is a 
range, the Cordillera de los Organos, whose loftiest 
height. Pan de Guajaibon, is 2000 feet. The ter- 
minating headland is north of the Bay of Guadiana, 
and across that is a low peninsula of swamps and 
sand-dunes to Cape Antonio. 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA I3I 

in the shell of limestone that covers much of the 
great island are many caverns, some of vast extent, 
" measureless to man," with tortuous labyrinths and 
dark galleries, corridors, and vaults, and with pools 
and streams into which the surface water disappears. 
One of the caves most visited is near Matanzas ; and 
in the eastern peninsula north of Guantanamo are 
those of Monte Libano, while near Cape Maisi is a 
cavern distinguished for the prehistoric remains 
found therein. There are also extensive caves in 
the Cubitas Sierra and in the vicinity of Remedies, 
Holguin, and Bayamo. 

The rivers of Cuba are mostly insignificant in 
length and volume, flowing north or south from 
the interior highlands to the sea. The largest is 
the Rio Cauto, draining the valley to the north 
of the plateau that comes down from the Sierra 
Maestra, and flowing westward into the large bay 
on which Manzanillo is situated, the Bajo de Buena 
Esperanza (Good Hope). It has many affluents, 
and the main stream is one hundred and thirty 
miles long and navigable for small craft for nearly 
half its length. The alluvial deposits brought 
down by the river have produced a shifting delta 
which has sometimes caused serious obstruction. 
Once, in 1616, it closed the old mouth and opened 
a new one in such a way as to leave several vessels, 
including a man-of-war, shut in from the sea. 
The most considerable river on the northern coast 
is the Sagua la Grande, a little west of the middle 
of the island, but there is a multitude of small 
streams which vary in volume with the seasons. 



132 THE WEST INDIES 

The cavernous structure of the limestone formation 
produces some remarkable effects upon the water- 
flow. There are rivulets that lose themselves in 
dark underground reservoirs, and after winding 
about and joining with subterranean affluents, 
emerge upon some declivity, to tumble down in 
picturesque cascades and possibly to sink out of 
sight again. Twenty miles south-west of Havana 
there is a beautiful lake of six square miles' area 
among the green ridges, called the Ariguanabo, 
from which flows the Rio San Antonio. When this 
stream reaches San Antonio de los Bafios, it sinks 
under a large ceiba, or " silk cotton," tree and dis- 
appears, to make its way to the coast unseen. 

The Rio Mayari, which flows into Nipe Bay from 
the cuchillas in Santiago province, has a series of 
three splendid falls, and the Moa has on one of its 
branches a cataract three hundred feet high, and 
not far below this it plunges into a cave to reappear 
farther down. The Rio Jatibonico del Norte also 
runs part of its course through underground chan- 
nels, and another part over a series of cascades. 
There are few surface lakes in the uplands, on 
account of this propensity of the water to run away 
through caves and gorges, leap down steep declivi- 
ties, and hurry away to the sea. But in the low 
parts of the island, in several places these vagrant 
streams are checked and forced to spread out into 
tranquil ponds and lagoons, or to be lost in weltering 
swamps in which the turtle and the alligator loaf 
their lives away. Some of these marshy districts 
along the coast contain impenetrable morasses and 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA 1 33 

thickets of mangrove, with winding passages and 
mysterious grottos, amid the weird decorations of 
luxuriant tropical verdure and bloom. The Rio San 
Diego in the west flows through that series of natu- 
ral arches called Los Portales, and several come down 
from wild gorges through verdant plains and afford 
a few miles of navigation. 

Fully one half of the Cuban coast is fringed with 
keys and reefs, which constitute a perilous barrier 
to navigators who are not acquainted with the chan- 
nels. These are the work of those incessant builders, 
the coral polyps, whose whole process of construc- 
tion consists in unconsciously grov/ing and dying off 
age after age, leaving a calcareous deposit that ever 
climbs toward the light. Their structures take a 
thousand forms, strange and grotesque, beneath the 
waves, and spread and coalesce above; and in the 
sun and air take on the vesture of plants and flowers. 
From the peninsula of Sabinal, just west of Nuevitas, 
there is an outer coast-line of one hundred and 
twenty miles, formed of islets, keys, and reefs, coral 
banks and shallow basins in which salt deposits are 
formed by evaporation in the tropical sun. Here 
was what Columbus called the " Gardens of the 
King. ' ' The Cayo Romano in this series is an isle of 
one hundred and eighty square miles with three small 
hills among its sand-dunes and salt basins. This 
outer coast-line is almost continuous, the land areas 
being considerable and the intersecting channels 
narrow; but extending beyond it nearly to Matan- 
zas, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles 
more, there is a more broken and irregular chain of 



134 THE WEST INDIES 

reefs and islets, almost attached to the shore at its 
western extremity between Cardenas and Matanzas. 
West of Havana again, from Bahia Honda almost 
to Cape Antonio, there is a vast coral bed from 
which rise the calcareous peaks and pinnacles of 
another line of keys and reefs, one hundred and 
forty miles long. 

Off the southern coast there are few outlying reefs 
along the shore from Cape Maisi to Cape Cruz in the 
east, where the sweep of the current from the Wind- 
ward Channel is felt, or at the western end of the 
island, where a similar influence comes from the cur- 
rents of the Yucatan Channel. But westward from 
Manzanillo there are the Cayos de las Doce Leguas, 
or the " Twelve Leagues of Keys," with multitu- 
dinous rocks and reefs between them and the main 
shore. Here were the '* Gardens of the Queen " of 
Columbus. The Isle of Pines farther west is on the 
outskirts of a veritable wilderness of these coral 
islands which includes the Jardines and the Jardinil- 
los, " gardens " and " little gardens." The Isle of 
Pines itself, which Columbus called Evangelita, is 
divided by a tortuous passage, la riviere salee, or 
" salt river," the section north of this being diversified 
by hill and dale, with the Sierra de la Canada, rising 
to a height of 1540 feet, and that south of it being 
low, swampy, and full of quagmires and bog-holes. 
The island takes its name from the northern tree 
which thrives there as nowhere else in the tropics. 
Notwithstanding the coralline barrier that guards so 
much of its coast, Cuba has many bays and harbours 
accessible to the largest vessels. The chief ports on 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA 1 35 

the northern coast are Bahia Honda, Mariel, Ha- 
vana, Matanzas, Cardenas, Nuevitas, and Nipe ; and 
on the southern side, Guantanamo, Santiago de 
Cuba, Trinidad, and Cienfuegos. While the general 
coast-line of the island of Cuba is said to be 2200 
miles in extent, it stretches to 6800 miles, if all the 
indentations and the contours of the outlying keys 
and reefs are followed. 

What mineral wealth may be concealed in the 
bowels of Cuba or within the interstices of its rocky 
skeleton is scarcely known. The Spanish discover- 
ers sent from here some meagre treasures of gold 
which were extorted or enticed from the natives and 
may have been the slow accumulations of a long 
time. Gold there is known to be in some of the 
river beds, and from those of the Holguin and Sagua 
la Grande fine samples of the precious metal have 
been obtained, but not in permanently " paying 
quantities." Silver ore was discovered back in 
1827 in some of the mountains of the Santa Clara 
province, which promised a rich yield at first, but 
either it grew poorer or was badly worked, for the 
mines were long ago abandoned. Rich copper de- 
posits there are known to be in the Cobre Mountains, 
and mining was carried on profitably there many 
years. The mines are now abandoned and filled 
with water. Iron has been extracted from the hills 
of Juragua near Santiago by an American company 
with good returns, notwithstanding official inter- 
ference and obstruction that frequently had to be 
bought off. There is a variety of coal widely dis- 
tributed, which is so bituminous that it burns with 



136 THE WEST INDIES 

a fierce heat and leaves little ashes. In some places 
it softens to an asphaltic pitch, almost to petroleum. 
Near Havana there are quarries of slate from which 
thick slabs are taken that are of value in building, 
and there are specimens of marble and jasper which 
take a high polish. 

But in nearly four centuries of Spanish possession 
there has been no systematic exploration, no surveys 
or careful examination of mineral resources, no en- 
couragement of enterprise, but every obstruction ; 
and the mountains and gulches of Cuba are in their 
interior composition an unknown land. Twenty 
million acres of its area are unreclaimed territory, 
and 13,000,000 are said to be " virgin forest," what- 
ever virginity in a forest may signify. Among the 
virgins of the wood are huge trees of mahogany, 
cedar, and ebony, and the sabicu and grandilla 
peculiar to the American tropics. It was the rich 
verdure of the forests, and the rank luxuriance of 
vegetation, which includes flowering plants to the 
number of more than 3300 actually recorded as in- 
digenous to the soil, which gave Cuba the title of 
the * * Pearl of the Antilles. ' ' Perhaps her pride and- 
glory are the *' feathery palm-trees," of which thirty 
varieties rise *' o'er the smiling land " ; but she has all 
the varied shrubs and herbs that belong to a rich soil 
under tropic suns. Fruits there are in great variety, 
of which the orange and the pineapple are the chief ; 
pepper and spices are not wanting, and farinaceous 
plants like the yam, the potato, and cassava are plen- 
tiful; while maize, the Indian corn that waves so 
luxuriantly in August over our continent, was the 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA 1 37 

chief crop of the modest agriculture of the Arawak. 
That enticing narcotic, tobacco, with which the gentle 
aborigines were wont to soothe their nerves when 
first intruded upon by the restless white men, has 
captured the conqueror, and wide fields of it now 
draw his wealth to the plundered island. The soil, 
far the greater part of which still reeks with its own 
richness without cultivation, has been generously- 
receptive of exotic plants, and the sugar-cane and 
coffee of the East have flourished in it as hardly in 
their native ground. 

In quadrupeds Cuba was poor when first sur- 
prised into a consciousness that it had been an undis- 
covered country. *' Guaquinaji " is what the natives 
are said to have called that " dumb dog " which so 
puzzled the Spaniards, now conjectured to have 
been the raccoon, and they had a ** jutia, " which 
was much like a big rat, but black of colour and resi- 
dent in holes and clefts of trees. The dogs and cats 
introduced by the first colonists ran wild, and still 
infest the woods, and there are some specimens of 
deer of European origin. Our domestic animals 
and fowls have no trouble in thriving, but none of 
their like were indigenous. The island does some- 
what better in reptiles. There is a crocodile, or cay- 
man, of respectable size, and many hzards; one large 
but harmless serpent, twelve or fourteen feet in 
length sometimes, and several smaller members of 
the family from which even paradise was not exempt. 
It is commonly said that none are venomous, but a 
vicious red asp has an ugly bite. The hideous but 
harmless iguana and the inconstant chameleon are 



138 THE WEST INDIES 

found here, and of insects there is no end. The 
scorpion is not deadly but he can make his victim 
extremely uncomfortable, and there is a very nasty 
spider, while mosquitoes buzz and fireflies flicker 
in multitudinous hosts. There is a " vegetating 
bee" afflicted with a chronic fungus, a pestilent 
jigger, and an ant that never takes a siesta. Land 
crabs march in hordes at certain times long distances 
on a trocha of their own. Turtles and tortoises 
luxuriate in the tepid waters and the sweltering air; 
fish roam in multitudes in the thousand coves and 
crannies of the shore, and oysters and others of the 
mollusc kind repose in soft beds of mud and marl. 

Birds of the air are numerous, as in all the islands, 
and have their kindred on both the northern and the 
southern continent. There are two hundred species 
now indigenous to Cuba, many of which have fine 
plumage but few melodious notes. Among them 
parrots and humming-birds are conspicuous. The 
only birds of prey worth noting are a repulsive vul- 
ture and a turkey buzzard, which are protected from 
harm because they act as scavengers in towns where 
the lazy inhabitants throw out their refuse and leave 
it to rot and reek. 

Climate has much to do with what the scientific 
people call the flora and fauna of the country, or in 
plain terms with its plants and animals; but the 
effect upon its human inhabitants and its history is 
not less important. The climate of Cuba is neces- 
sarily that of the torrid zone, but climate varies 
much with altitude as well as latitude. On the 
coasts, where by far the larger proportion of the 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CUBA 1 39; 

people now dwell, it may be torrid, but in the up- 
lands it is temperate, and there are heights where 
frost and ice are not unknown, though snow has 
rarely been seen on the loftiest peaks. It is com- 
mon to divide the year into two seasons of equal 
length, the warm and wet from May to October in- 
clusive, and the cool and dry from November to 
April; but the rainfall of the wet season is irregular 
and is seldom heavy before the end of June or after 
the end of September, while nearly one third of the 
aggregate for the year comes in showers during 
what is called the dry season. The rain, which is 
brought by the north-east trade-winds, is heaviest 
on the northern coast and toward the eastern end of 
the island. The total fall in the year about Havana 
is 40. 5 inches, but the ratio of humidity in the at- 
mosphere is high a large part of the time. 

The temperature even on the coast cannot be 
called extreme at any time. The hottest months 
are July and August, and the range at Havana is 
from 'j^'^ to 88°, with an average of 82° on the scale 
of Fahrenheit. In December and January the mini- 
mum is 58° and the maximum 78°, and the air is 
generally soft and balmy. The climate is healthful 
to the human constitution, except in swampy and 
malarious districts where drainage and cultivation 
are alike unknown, and in cities and towns where no 
proper attention is given to sanitary requirements. 
There is nothing like a troubling and a distributing 
of water and a cultivation of the soil to dispel mala- 
rious exhalations and extinguish the germs of fever; 
and in thickly peopled places health is largely a 



I40 THE WEST INDIES 

question of an ample and wholesome supply of 
water judiciously used for cleanliness, internal and 
external. There is one effect of the elements upon 
health and comfort which cannot be averted or 
avoided, if once it takes to the war-path. Hurri- 
canes sometimes afflict the island of Cuba, though 
not so frequently as they scourge Jamaica, and the 
Caribbees. In 1846, one swept furiously over the 
very city of Havana, destroying 2000 houses and 
damaging 5000 more, and cutting a swath of deso- 
lation across the country twenty miles wide. 

There is a popular territorial division of Cuba 
which relates rather to its physical than its political 
aspects. The western end is called the Vuelta 
Abajo, or the " bend below," designated with refer- 
ence to the trend of the coast-line from Havana. 
Eastward of that to about the meridian of Santa 
Clara is the Vuelta Arriba, or * * bend above. ' ' Then 
comes the Cinco Villas section, so called from the 
five ancient towns — Trinidad, Santo Espiritu, San 
Juan de los Remedios, Santa Clara, and Sagua la 
Grande. The large section from Puerto Principe 
east is the Tierra Adentro, or " land within." 




CHAPTER XIII 

HISTORY AND SPANISH GOVERNMENT OF CUBA 

COLUMBUS visited the southern coast of Cuba 
twice, subsequent to his first discovery of the 
island from the other side. Both in 1494 and in 
1502 he explored westward, but only persevered to 
the Isle of Pines, which he called Evangelita, and 
then struck south ; and he died in the belief that 
what he had discovered was a peninsula projecting 
from the Asiatic continent. In 1508, Ocampo, who 
set out to examine the land with more care, in view 
of the early exhaustion of Hispaniola, persisted in 
his exploration until he rounded Cape Antonio and 
returned by the northern coast. It was in 15 11, as 
we have already noted, that Velasquez and his three 
hundred men came to make a permanent settlement 
and landed near Baracoa. In 1515, they founded 
the towns of Santiago de Cuba and Trinidad, and a 
little later San Juan de los Remedios and Santo 
Espiritu. Among the companions of Velasquez, as 
we also know, were Bartolome Las Casas, the cham- 
pion of th^ natives, and Hernando Cortez, who after 
being a cruel slave-driver in the Cobre mines, sailed 

141 



142 THE WEST INDIES 

away from Santiago to Yucatan with a part of Ve- 
lasquez's fleet, to become the conqueror of Mexico. 
At the time of this first invasion, the island was 
very populous and divided into nine tribal com- 
munities, each under its own cacique. These were 
rapidly *' improved off the face of the earth " after 
the vigorous manner adopted in Hispaniola. The 
last of the chiefs to hold out, and the only one who 
made much resistance, was Hatuei in the eastern 
section of the island, who had heard of the atrocities 
across the channel and fought desperately. He was 
burned alive for refusing to be baptised, because it 
would send him to the same heaven where " good 
Spaniards " went. He preferred to avoid their com- 
pany at the risk of perpetual burning. The first 
settlement toward the west was made on the south 
coast on Broa Bay east of Batabano, and called San 
Cristobal in honour of the discoverer ; but the ground 
was unfavourable, and the settlement was moved 
around to the north coast at the entrance to the 
Chorrera, or ** watercourse," where is now the 
Torre de Chorrera, popularly called the " Buccan- 
eers' Fort." The full name of the place was Cristo- 
bal de la Habana, and when it made another move 
eastward and established itself on the peninsula 
between the Carenas basin and the sea, it came to 
be called simply La Habana, which the English 
transformed successively into" Havannah," ** Ha- 
vanna," and " Havana." It has been sometimes 
assumed that this meant haven in the original, but 
it meant nothing of the kind, and the better opinion 
is that it is a corruption of Savannah. 



HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF CUBA 1 43 

Columbus had given the land which he discovered 
on the 28th of October, 1492, the name Juana, but 
when Ferdinand died it was called Fernandina. 
When the English deprived Jamaica of the appella- 
tion of the patron saint of Spain, the memory of the 
king was displaced by that of the saint, and this 
island was called Santiago for a time. Then the 
name was left to the flourishing town on the south 
coast, and the island as a whole was named succes- 
sively Ave Maria and Alfa y Omega ; but in the end 
the old native name for the central section got the 
better of all Spanish designations, though mutilated 
to less than half its legitimate length. That name 
was Cubanacan, and the flippant French buccaneers 
began to call the whole place Coube; and the 
Spaniards finally accepted Cuba. 

Hernando de Soto was the first governor by royal 
appointment, and in 1538, before he started on his 
explorations of the Gulf coast, he began the fortifi- 
cations of Havana in consequence of the attack of 
French privateers which had just occurred. The 
peril from French, English, and Dutch marauders 
of the sea long continued, and the defences were 
strengthened from time to time. The Castillo del 
Morro and the Castillo de la Punta on opposite 
sides of the entrance to the Bay of Havana were 
constructed before 1600, but were enlarged after- 
wards. 

The colony did not advance much until the latter 
part of the eighteenth century. Previous to 1580, 
the scattered inhabitants were chiefly engaged in 
raising cattle. Then tobacco and sugar began to 



144 THE WEST INDIES 

be cultivated on a modest scale, and coffee was in- 
troduced when immigrants came from Martinique 
in 1765. These Frenchmen also introduced bees, 
and wax became an article of trade. Plantations 
grew slowly for a long time, because trade was dis- 
couraged by privateers and buccaneers and the gen- 
eral impertinence of Spain's numerous enemies as 
well as by her own short-sighted policy. There 
were few towns, and there were wide wastes of rich 
land without inhabitants. Governors came out 
from Spain and made a great parade in Havana 
with their gorgeous state coaches in the streets and 
their sumptuous barges in the harbour, and civil and 
military officers made small fortunes and went home. 
The meagre annals were enlivened near the end 
of the Seven Years' War by the British capture of 
Havana, Matanzas, and the adjacent territory, and 
after that shaking up there was greater progress. 
The large profits of sugar, tobacco, and coffee began 
to be realised, and the hidalgos of Spain acquired 
large estates and many slaves and drew riches from 
the land. Peasants were brought out from the 
Spanish provinces as colonists, and the white popu- 
lation increased. Commerce becoming safer, Havana 
grew to be a flourishing port in spite of stupid re- 
strictions upon trade, and had a navy -yard arid ship- 
building works. In 1790, a really enlightened and 
energetic governor was sent out in the person of 
Don Luis Las Casas. He instituted many public 
works and improvements, promoted education as 
well as industry and trade, and gave a new impulse 
to the life of the island. It was largely due to him 



HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF CUBA I45 

that Cuba was little disturbed by the commotions 
in Haiti after the French Revolution. He was suc- 
ceeded by the Count of Santa Clara, who continued 
his policy and looked especially after the defences of 
the various ports. A good many French immigrants 
came into Cuba after the revolution in Haiti and 
contributed to its material development. In 1808, 
after Napoleon had upset the dynasty in Spain* 
every member of the Cabildo, or provincial council, 
in Cuba took an oath of allegiance and fidelity to 
the " legitimate sovereign," which won for it the 
familiar title of the " Ever Faithful Isle." The 
French domination in Spain, nevertheless, had a 
good effect, because it removed the restrictions upon 
trade just when the conditions were favourable to a 
development of the industries of the island, and 
from the beginning of the present century until 
about 1825 there was a period of unexampled pros- 
perity and growth. 

After that the oppressive effects of the despotic 
and corrupt government of the colony began to be 
seriously felt. It had long been governed under 
the " Laws of the Indies " (Las Leyes de las Indias) 
adopted in the sixteenth century and hardly modi- 
fied afterwards. A royal decree defining the powers 
of the governor-general in 1825 gave him the same 
authority as belonged to the governor of a besieged 
city; and though it was revoked in 1870 the auto- 
cratic power of the colonial ruler was hardly miti- 
gated. The governor-general was always in effect 
a military ruler, having the title of captain-general 
and being a lieutenant-general of the Spanish army. 



146 THE WEST INDIES 

He was the representative of the Crown of Spain 
and responsible only to the sovereign, and he was 
the supreme head of the ecclesiastical as well as 
the civil and military jurisdiction, the Church being 
maintained as part of the government of the State. 
His authority was virtually arbitrary and unre- 
strained, and the manner of its exercise depended 
entirely on the character of the man appointed to 
wield it. There were six governors of provinces, 
but they, too, were appointed by the Crown and 
were military officers of the rank of generals, sub- 
ject to the orders of the captain-general. There 
were thirty-four subordinate jurisdictions, or cap- 
taincies, which for purposes of civil administration 
were under military officers, though these were 
called " lieutenant-governors." Each town had an 
Ayuntamiento, or council, which chose the mayor, 
but their functions were purely local, and even as 
such were subject to the overruling power of the 
colonial government. 

In 1879, the right of representation in the Cortes 
at Madrid was granted as a measure of " reform." 
The province of Havana could send three senators, 
each of the other five provinces two, the archbishop 
of Santiago one, the University of Havana one, and 
the Society of Friends of the Country one; and 
there were to be thirty members of the House of 
Deputies, elected and apportioned according to 
population, the suffrage being qualified by the pay- 
ment of $25 a year in taxes. Not only was this 
representation in a hopeless minority at Madrid, 
but the choice of senators and the election of depu- 



HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OE CUBA 1 47 

ties were so controlled that they were nearly all 
natives of Spain and not of Cuba. By another 
" reform " in 1895, a council of administration was 
established to be advisory or auxiliary to the gover- 
nor-general; but of its thirty members fifteen were 
appointed by the Crown and the others chosen by 
controlled elections in the provinces. Besides, the 
governor-general could suspend them individually 
at will to the number of fourteen, and if the rest 
were not tractable he could suspend the whole body 
on the advice of the " Council of Authorities," con- 
sisting of the archbishop of Santiago, the bishop of 
Havana, the commanding officers of the army and 
navy, the chief-justice of the Supreme Court at 
Havana, the attorney-general, the head of the de- 
partment of finance, and the director of local ad- 
ministration. These all represented substantially the 
same power as the governor-general and were 
invariably subservient. 

There was an elective assembly in each province, 
of twelve to twenty members according to popula- 
tion, with limited functions and virtually controlled 
by the governor, who could prorogue it at any time 
and report his action to the governor-general, who 
could suspend any provincial assembly whenever he 
saw fit and report to the government at Madrid. 
The official influence over elections extended even 
to the towns, and when the Ayuntamiento did not 
choose the right member for mayor, the governor- 
general could substitute one of his own selection. 
To all intents and purposes, the government was 
autocratic from top to bottom. 



148 THE WEST INDIES 

The military jurisdiction proper was divided into 
two departments, with headquarters at Havana and 
Santiago, the former under the direct command of 
the captain-general, and the other subject also to his 
authority under the command of a general who was 
called the " Governor of Cuba." There was also a 
second in command at the capital, who was known 
as " Governor of Havana." The navy was also 
under a commanding officer, and there were five 
stations, Havana, Trinidad, San Juan de los Reme- 
dios, Santiago, and Nuevitas. The army in time of 
peace was about 20,000 men, and a number of in- 
ferior gunboats were kept in Cuban waters, with a 
cruiser generally in Havana harbour. The ecclesias- 
tical establishment was originally subordinate to that 
of Santo Domingo, but a bishopric was established 
at an early date at Santiago, which had exclusive 
jurisdiction until 1788. Then the diocese of Havana 
was created, and in 1804 that of Santiago was ele- 
vated to an archbishopric. The Inquisition was 
introduced in the sixteenth century, and the State 
religion was maintained with rigour. No other was 
ever tolerated under the Spanish sovereignty. 

The judiciary system consisted of the Real Audi- 
encia Pretorial at Havana, and two superior courts, 
one at Havana for the western provinces and one at 
Puerto Principe for the tv/o eastern provinces. The 
Real Audiencia acted as an advisory Council of 
State. There were twenty-six judicial districts, 
each with an alcalde mayor, and there were auxiliary 
delegates, or alcaldes, acting as local magistrates. 
All the higher offices and the greater number of 



HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF CUBA 1 49 

minor places were held by Spaniards, most of whom 
had for years been, justly or unjustly, charged with 
corruption. 

The combination of civil, military, naval, ecclesi- 
astical, and judicial power was virtually swayed by 
the governor-general, who represented the royal 
authority at Madrid, and exercised its prerogatives 
in the colony without the restraints of constitutional 
limitation, or of responsibility to anybody but a 
sovereign who rarely interfered except to substitute 
one governor-general for another, being therein re- 
stricted to the lieutenant-generals of the army. 
Even the educational system, such as it was, was 
under the direction of the governor-general and the 
rector of the university, who was also appointed by 
the Crown and always sent out from Spain. The uni- 
versity was established at Havana in 1721 by the 
" Order of Preaching Friars " under authority of the 
Pope, and was extended and more liberally endowed 
by Governor-General Las Casas. There was a col- 
legiate institution in each of the six provinces, with 
power to confer the degree of bachelor, or licentiate. 
There was a system of public schools, and elementary 
education was made compulsory by law in 1880; but 
the ratio of illiteracy continued to be very high. 

The salary of the governor-general was $50,000 
a year, that of each governor of a province $12,000, 
and the bishop of Havana and archbishop of San- 
tiago each received $18,000 a year. The expenses 
of every branch of administration, including that of 
the Church, were charged upon the revenues of the 
island, which also had to pay the cost of keeping 



150 THE WEST INDIES 

itself in subjection, including all the debts, honest 
and otherwise, incurred in the process. Besides 
this, about $6,000,000 of revenue per year used to 
be paid to the home government. While the taxes 
would have been extremely heavy if the proceeds 
had gone wholly to meet legitimate expenditures, 
the corrupt exactions of collectors and the pecula- 
tions of public ofBcers notoriously added greatly to 
the burden. The people, most of whom were de- 
prived of all political power, were forced to support 
a horde of Spanish office-holders and to enrich some 
of them, under a system which tended to crush the 
life out of productive industry and seriously ham- 
pered trade with the rest of the world. 




i . — , -J 



CHAPTER XIV 

PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA 

THE six provinces, or political divisions, of Cuba 
are transverse sections of the long island, four 
of which are regarded as western and two eastern. 
Statistics of the island are uncertain, as no accurate 
surveys have been made, and the latest census, 
which was taken in 1887, is not altogether trust- 
worthy. The figures here given of the area and 
population of the several provinces and the popu- 
lation of cities and towns are taken from the most 
authoritative sources. The name by which each 
province is designated is the same as that of its 
chief town. That at the western end of the island 
is Pinar del Rio, area 5950 square miles, population 
182,204. It contains most of the Vuelta Abajo sec- 
tion, which is famous for its fine tobacco. The 
next, as we proceed eastward, is Havana, whose area 
is only 3420 square miles, but which has a popula- 
tion of 435,896, nearly half of which is contained in 
the capital city. It includes the Isle of Pines, which 
remained uninhabited until 1828, when a military 
station was established there. In recent years it 
has become a health resort for consumptives. 

151 



152 THE WEST INDIES 

The province of Matanzas, with an area of 3380 
square miles and 283, 120 inhabitants, is the only one 
that has practically no southern coast, the next prov- 
ince of Santa Clara being allowed to extend a narrow 
wedge below it and include the great marshy region 
of the peninsula of Zapata (** the Shoe "). Matan- 
zas includes a large part of the richest sugar district, 
and is agriculturally the most highly developed 
section of the island. Santa Clara includes the old 
Cinco Villas, and has an area of 9210 square miles 
and a population of 321,397. It is the scene of most 
of the earliest settlements of the island, and contains 
some of the largest sugar plantations and mills. It 
also produces a great variety of fruits, and is be- 
lieved to be rich in minerals. The available seaports 
are on the southern coast, whereas farther west they 
are on the northern. These four western provinces 
contain rather more than half the length of the 
island, but much less than half its area. 

A little east of the boundary of Santa Clara is the 
low and narrow section which practically divides 
the island of Cuba into two parts. A sinking of 
three hundred feet would actually separate it into . 
two distinct islands. Here is the old trocha, which 
has been transformed into a military railroad, and 
near by is the dividing line of the two dioceses. 
The province in which this depression lies is ofificially 
called Puerto Principe, though it is often referred 
to as Camaguey. It is bordered by lines of reefs on 
both sides, and its only good seaport is Nuevitas 
on the northern coast. A large part of it is moun- 
tainous and covered with forests, and it contains the 



PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA 1 53 

great caverns which are the wonder of the few who 
have explored them. With an area of I2,9CX) square 
miles, Puerto Principe province has less than 70,000 
inhabitants, and has been the favourite scene of rev- 
olutionary uprisings on account of the almost inac- 
cessible fastnesses of its mountains. It has little in 
the way of systematic industries, and its people are 
engaged chiefly in getting out some of its fine cabi- 
net timber and preserving guava. The largest of all 
the provinces in extent is that of Santiago de Cuba 
in the east, which has an area of about 14,000 square 
miles and a population of 230,000. It contains the 
mountains from which copper and iron are obtained, 
and has available harbours on both coasts — Mayari, 
Gibara, and Baracoa on the north, and Guantanamo, 
Santiago de Cuba, and Manzanillo on the south. 

Places are sometimes referred to as being in certain 
" districts," meaning the judicial districts. These 
are Guanajay, Guane, Pinar del Rio, and San Cristo- 
bal in the province of Pinar del Rio ; Bejucal, Guan- 
abacoa, Guines, Havana, Jaruco, Marianao, and 
San Antonio de los Bafios in Havana province ; Al- 
fonso XII., Cardenas, Colon, and Matanzas in the 
province of Matanzas; Cienfuegos, Juan de los 
Remedios, and Sagua la Grande in Santa Clara; 
Moron and Puerto Principe in Puerto Principe; and 
Baracoa, Guantanamo, Holguin, Manzanillo, and 
Santiago de Cuba in Santiago. They are designated 
by the names of towns in which the court proceed- 
ings are held and the alcalde mayor has his seat. 

The one great city of Cuba, and indeed of all 
the West Indies, is Havana. At the time of the 



154 ^-^^ IVEST INDIES 

last census its population was 198,720, but it has 
been lately estimated at 250,000 or more. After 
two ineffectual attempts to found a western capital, 
this unrivalled location was fixed upon in 1519, in a 
deep and sheltered bay, at the natural starting-point 
of commerce from the western world in the early 
days, which led to its being called " Llave del Nuevo 
Mundo," '' Key of the New World." The city is on 
a peninsula thrust into the bay from the west, with 
a deep channel about a thousand feet wide on its 
northern side. This channel is strongly fortified 
and capable of being made impenetrable. At its 
entrance on the side opposite to the city is the 
Castillo del Morro, or Morro Castle, built in 1589 
and afterwards strengthened, and on the city side is 
the Castillo de la Punta, or Castle of the Point, of 
the same date. On the heights to the east of the 
Morro is the Castillo, or Fortress, of Cabana, over- 
looking the channel and the city with its guns, and 
defended on the seaward side of the narrow penin- 
sula on which these structures stand by three bas- 
tions. Farther within the bay on the same side are 
the Casa Blanca and Fort San Diego, and at the end 
of the western arm of the bay on the city side is the 
Castle of Santo Domingo de Atares, while on the 
heights back of the city landward is the Castillo del 
Principe with its adjoining camp and batteries; and 
on the shore west of the channel entrance is the Santa 
Clara battery, so called from the governor-general 
who built it at the end of the last century. The 
harbour itself is spacious and deep, though fouled 
for generations by the drainage of the city. There 



PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA 1 55 

is a fine lighthouse, some good wharves, and a large 
floating dock. 

The city of Havana has an exceedingly picturesque 
appearance from the bay, its low buildings being 
mostly of white and yellow stone, or stuccoed over 
and tinted with pink, blue, and green, but the 
background is somewhat flat and tame. In the old 
time of peril from prowling enemies, a wall was built 
about the city, and though this was demolished in 
1863 the intramural and extramural city are still 
spoken of. The former is the old part, and its 
streets are narrow, with sidewalks that afford a foot- 
ing for but a single line of passers, and on a close 
view it seems shabby, dirty, and overcrowded. The 
chief public buildings are the great yellow palace of 
the governor-general on the Plaza de Armas, the 
bishop's palace, the university, the cathedral built by 
the Jesuits in 1724 and containing within its unat- 
tractive walls some richly frescoed spaces and costly 
altars, the old church of San Juan de Dios dating from 
1 573, and that of San Felipe, which has a large library. 
The chief monuments are the structure which long 
purported to contain the remains of Columbus, and 
the statue of Ferdinand VII. on the Plaza de Armas. 
The Prado or Paseo Isabel is a fine boulevard laid 
out in the last century, with the little Parque Cen- 
tral at its beginning. The Paseo Tacon, the gardens 
of Los Molinos, with their grand avenues of palm, 
the botanical gardens, and spacious suburban villas 
form attractive features of the city. There are also 
three theatres and a grand opera house ; a number 
of good hotels and many lively cafes. But Havana 



156 THE WEST INDIES 

is, in the main, a commercial town and the natural 
seat of a great trade, hitherto repressed by a nar- 
row policy. It is the centre of the great tobacco 
industry, and is the chief port of entry of the island. 

There are three good harbours on the north coast 
of Pinar del Rio west of Havana. These are Mariel, 
Cabaflas, and Bahia Honda, but they are compara- 
tively little used, and the most flourishing towns 
of this province are inland — Pinar del Rio in the 
centre of the tobacco district, with a population of 
20,000, and Guanajay, which is surrounded by coffee 
plantations. At San Diego in the Organos Hills 
are mineral springs much resorted to in summer. 
Guanabacoa, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, is on a 
commanding height just south-east of Havana. And 
in the interior of the same province, farther to the 
southeast and connected with the great seaport by 
rail, is Guines, the chief agricultural centre of this 
section. On the southern coast, as a stepping-place 
to the Isle of Pines, is the little port of Batabano. 
Regla, a suburban place across the bay from Havana, 
has a famous bull-ring. 

The second city in Cuba, and next to Havana iii 
importance as a seaport, is Matanzas, fifty-four miles 
east of the capital by waggon road and seventy-four 
miles by rail. It was founded in 1693 b}^ immigrants 
from the Canary Islands on a magnificent bay be- 
tween the rivers San Juan and Yumuri, across both 
of which it has grown in later times, the section to 
the north of the Yumuri being called Versalles and 
that to the south of the San Juan, Pueblo Nuevo. 
The whole city has now nearly 90,000 inhabitants. 



PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA 157 

Its original name was San Carlos Alcazar; that by 
which it is now called, meaning ** butcheries," is an 
ill-omened reminiscence of a massacre of the abor- 
igines in this neighbourhood. There is a large 
public square, garnished with a statue of Ferdinand 
VII., and having the commandant's residence on 
one side, and a beautiful park up the valley of the 
Yumuri. The Estaban Theatre is the finest in the 
West Indies, and the Empresa Academy is said to 
be one of the best educational institutions. The 
Casino and Lyceum are attractive buildings, and 
the Boukvard de Santa Cristina is a handsome 
thoroughfare. Matanzas is chiefly engaged in the 
business of exporting sugar and molasses, which has 
suffered much in recent years. About two and a 
half miles east of the city and opening on the bay 
are the beautiful stalactite caves of Bellamar, much 
used for bathing, the intrusive sharks being excluded 
by iron gratings. 

Thirty miles farther east in the Matanzas province 
is the thriving port of Cardenas. Though founded 
in 1828, it has grown to a city of more than 20,000 
inhabitants, and is handsomely built and actively 
engaged in manufactures and trade, in which Ameri- 
cans take so large a part that it has been called the 
' * American city. ' ' Its spacious harbour is sheltered 
from the north-west winds by the Punta Icacos, and 
it is connected by railway with Matanzas and Ha- 
vana and with all the important interior towns as 
far as Santa Clara. Its trade is mainly in sugar, 
molasses, rum, and tobacco. The centre of the sugar 
industry in the interior is Colon, formerly called 



158 THE WEST INDIES 

Nueva Bermeja, which has a population of about 
6000. 

As we reach the province of Santa Clara we find 
the industrial and commercial activity shifted to the 
southern side of the island, with its chief outlets at 
Cienfuegos and Trinidad. Cienfuegos is on a splen- 
did harbour, which was visited by Columbus, and 
surveyed by Ocampo, and of which Herrera said it 
was " unrivalled in the world ;" and yet no town was 
established there until 18 19, when a French planter 
named Louis Clouet from Louisiana came with 
about forty families, partly from Gascony and the 
Basque country, and partly refugees from Santo 
Domingo. The name was that of a Cuban governor, 
and the place has grown to a flourishing city of 
27,000 inhabitants, altogether outstripping the an- 
cient port of Trinidad, on account of the superiority 
of the harbour and the position of the town directly 
upon it. Trinidad is a little back from the coast, 
some forty miles farther east, and is approached 
through three small bays. Between the two towns 
is a district where fine tobacco is grown, nearly 
equal to that of the Vuelta Abajo. Santo Espiritu 
and San Juan de los Remedios in the interior are 
chiefly noted as two of the old Cinco Villas. The 
latter was originally established on the north coast, 
near where the port of Caibarien now is, but the 
settlers were driven inland by the buccaneers and 
founded Santa Clara in 1690, the present capital of 
the province, which has a population of 35,000 and 
is the centre of a region of considerable mineral 
wealth. Sagua la Grande, one of the " five cities," 



PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA 1 59 

is near the northern coast on a river of the same 
name, twelve miles from its mouth. It is connected 
with Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, and Havana by rail 
and is a place of some importance, with a population 
of about 14,000. This is where the auriferous sands 
of the river were first worked, but the yield of gold 
was so scanty that the effort to collect it was long 
ago given up. 

The only towns in the province of Puerto Prin- 
cipe worth noticing are Nuevitas and the capital, 
Puerto Principe, and the former is important only 
as the seaport of the latter, with which it is con- 
nected by railroad. The harbour of Nuevitas is in 
a deep bay, sheltered by promontories and entered 
by a narrow and winding channel. It was visited 
by Columbus, who called it Puerto Principe. The 
name was inappropriately transferred to the interior 
town, founded on the site of a native village called 
Camaguey. The native name still clings to the 
place. Puerto Principe is on a broad plain midway 
between the two coasts, and has a population of 
about 45,000. 

Santiago de Cuba, capital of the province of the 
same name, was founded by Diego Velasquez in 
1 5 15, three years after the first settlement of the 
Spaniards from Santo Domingo at Baracoa; and 
for some years it was the capital of the colony. 
It now has a population of over 70,000, and ranks 
third in commercial importance among the cities 
and seaports of Cuba. It is on a bay which is 
reached by a winding channel only one hundred and 
eighty yards wide in its narrowest part. The bay 



l6o THE WEST INDIES 

itself is about six miles deep by two wide, and the 
city lies upon its inmost shore. The entrance is 
guarded by the Morro Castle, a picturesque fortifi- 
cation on a promontory to the right, built by Gov- 
ernor Pedro de la Rocca in 1640, and the Zocapa 
Castle on a corresponding height opposite. A little 
way up the channel is the star-shaped Estrella bat- 
tery on the right, and a little farther yet on the left 
the Cayo Smith battery. At the turning into the 
bay there is another defence on the right in the Punta 
Gorda battery. These works have been proved to 
be, under Spanish command, more formidable in ap- 
pearance than in reality, but the harbour might be 
made impenetrable; and its commercial value could 
be greatly increased by dredging, as it has been 
allowed to shoal with silt and foul deposits from 
the city. 

Along the bay front is the Alameda, with shady 
palms and other trees, and a botanical garden at its 
eastern end, and from this the blue-, yellow-, and 
pink-tinted houses, interspersed with gardens, rise 
in terraces within an amphitheatre of hills, having 
a bold background of mountains in the distance. 
On close inspection much that is shabby and dirty 
appeared in the city in the lazy Spanish days, and 
the atmosphere stagnated in the encircling hills in 
most insalubrious fashion in the hot and humid 
season. But the old cathedral, built in 1522, was 
an attractive structure, and the military barracks 
and hospital were objects of languid interest. In 
its quiet way Santiago was a centre of commercial 
activity, whence was shipped more or less of tobacco. 



PROVINCES, CITIES, AND TOWNS OF CUBA l6l 

coffee, cocoa, hides, and other products of the region. 
It is between the copper mines at Cobre and the 
iron-works at Juragua, but the iron company has its 
own wharf at Daiquiri on the outer coast. In the 
outskirts about the old Indian village of El Caney, 
or " The Grave," suburban residences of the mer- 
chants have been built. 

The only other important seaport of Santiago 
province is Manzanillo on the bay of Buena Esper- 
anza at the delta of the Rio Cauto. It has a popu- 
lation of more than 20,000, and in the region back 
of it much sugar and tobacco are raised, and the de- 
scendants of the bees which the French immigrants 
brought here produce wax and honey for export. 
In the basin of the Cauto is the old town of Baya- 
mo. Farther inland toward the northern coast is 
Holguin. Some thirty miles east of the entrance 
to Santiago Bay is the broader and more open basin 
of Guantanamo, which is rendered too shallow for 
much use by deposits from the short streams that 
come down from the Santa Catalina district. Gibara 
on the north coast has an excellent harbour admit- 
ting vessels of sixteen feet draught, and this advan- 
tage has given it a considerable trade in sugar, coffee, 
tobacco, fruits, and ornamental woods. According 
to the best authority, it was here that Columbus 
made his first landing on the coast of Cuba, though 
others give the honour to Sabinal Bay where the 
port of Nuevitas is situated. 

We may as well terminate our notice of towns 
where Velasquez began, when he came to establish 
settlements on the island of Cuba. This was at 



1 62 THE WEST INDIES 

Baracoa, which is on the northern coast only a few 
miles from Cape Maisi. It is on the Puerto Santo 
of Columbus, but though it had an early and fav- 
ourable start it was not well located for growth, 
and at the age of nearly four hundred years it has 
little more than 5000 inhabitants, mostly engaged 
in selling cocoa and bananas, so far as they have 
anything to do. Near by are the wonderful stalac- 
tite caves containing human fossils, and the road 
from Baracoa to Santiago over the crests of the 
Cuchillas is described as one of the most romantic 
and picturesque conceivable. There is a monument 
of the olden time in the ruins of Velasquez's house 
at Baracoa. 




CHAPTER XV 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN CUBA 

THE industrial and commercial development of 
Cuba has been almost wholly a matter of the 
present century. The first census was taken in 1774, 
and gave the population as 171,620, fully one half 
of which consisted of negro slaves. In 1791 it had 
increased to only 272,000, but by 1811 it had leaped 
to 600,000. Under the policy by which Spain strove 
to monopolise the trade of her colonies and draw 
their resources to herself, there was no chance for 
healthy growth. Even the negroes did not thrive, 
and the slaves were constantly recruited by importa- 
tion to prevent their dying out. The plantations 
were in the hands of a few owners, and the peasant 
colonists increased slowly. The first real impulse 
came with the French immigrants and the introduc- 
tion of coffee culture. Though there was a begin- 
ning of this near the middle of the last century, 
especially just after the English occupation, its main 
volume followed the disturbances in Haiti conse- 
quent upon the French Revolution. Still more 
beneficial was knocking off the shackles of trade 
when Napoleon overturned the Bourbon dynasty of 

163 



164 THE WEST INDIES 

Spain, though these were subsequently replaced in 
part. 

Of the 600,000 inhabitants in 181 1, about 274,000 
were whites, 212,000 slaves, and 1 14,000 free persons 
of colour. The first quarter of this century was a 
period of great prosperity, and coffee plantations 
were especially profitable. That was the leading 
staple, and the production reached over 90,000,000 
pounds, valued at $20,000,000, in one year. The 
fall in price and the advance of sugar to the position 
of the most profitable crop caused coffee to fall 
behind, and in recent years that interest has been 
comparatively unimportant. The population of the 
island reached 900,000 in 1841, and the relative 
increase was greatest with the white race, which 
then included 418,000 of the inhabitants to 152,000 
free coloured persons and 330,000 slaves. The 
changing ratio continued down to the disturbances 
of the last war. The population at the outbreak of 
the insurrection was calculated, upon the normal 
increase after the census of 1887, to be about 1,650,- 
000, and of this 950,000 was said to be made up of 
white Creoles, that is, native descendants of Euro- 
pean settlers; 500,000 were negroes, and 150,000 
Spaniards of European birth. There were also about 
50,000 Chinamen._ The Mongolians were mostly 
brought as coolies for plantation work after the 
abolition of slavery. The density of population 
differed widely in the different provinces, averaging 
2. 10 per square kilometre in Puerto Principe, 7.75 in 
Santiago, 15.09 in Pinar del Rio, 15.34 in Santa 
Clara, 30.59 in Matanzas, and 52.49 in Havana. 




COURTYARD OF CUBAN HOUSE. 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 1 65 

The general classification of the population was 
into Spaniards, who were recent immigrants or tem- 
porary residents, and who largely held the ofifices and 
employments of the government, including those of 
the Church, but some of whom owned plantations 
or were engaged in business in the larger cities ; 
native white Cubans, who constituted the bulk of 
the inhabitants of the rural parts of the island and 
the small towns, and carried on the minor industries 
and trade ; the negroes, who were formerly slaves or 
the children of such, still employed chiefly on the 
plantations and in the sugar mills in a condition of 
virtual peonage, and enjoying little more political or 
social advantage than before emancipation ; and 
finally the mulattoes and mixed breeds, — generally 
spoken of in all the West Indies as "coloured," in 
contradistinction from ** blacks," — whose position 
was intermediate between the Creoles and negroes. 
The Spaniards insisted upon a certain exclusiveness, 
and social as well as political superiority, while the 
native Cubans cherished a pride of their own, which 
was strongly tinged with insular patriotism. 

The revolution of 1895-98 broke up the normal 
conditions of Cuban life and society, and reduced the 
population by a number variously estimated from 
300,000 to 600,000 ; and it is necessary for the present 
to deal with those conditions as they were before 
the outbreak. It is generally stated that about one 
half of the area of the island was still covered with 
forest and other wild growths, though not more than 
one fifth consisted of mountain and swamp land 
that was not susceptible of cultivation. Much more 



1 66 THE WEST INDIES 

than one half of the remainder, consisting of fertile 
plains, hill slopes, and valleys, was given up to 
pasturage, supporting not a tenth of the cattle that 
might be raised, and yielding not a hundredth of 
the return that might be derived from it by culti- 
vation. 

Lack of trustworthy statistics forbids positive 
statement, but the area of the island is approxi- 
mately 30,000,000 acres, and one authority puts the 
cultivated land at one fourth of the whole, while 
another says it does not exceed 2,000,000 acres in 
all. What is actually known is that little had been 
done to develop, or even to ascertain, the mineral re- 
sources of the island or to utilise the known resources 
of the forests in valuable timber, of which there are 
said to be forty varieties ; that there were vast areas 
of rich land uncultivated and unoccupied; and that 
the scale of production even for the great staples 
was far below what it might be. While 1000 miles 
of railroad have been built since the beginning of 
construction in 1837, and the Hnes connect Havana 
with inland points in the west and reach east as far 
as Santa Clara and Remedios, and local lines pene- 
trate a short distance from all the principal seaports, 
the system is very incomplete, and in all the eastern 
half of the island merely rudimentary. There are a 
few good waggon roads on what used to be the main 
lines of travel, but for the most part the means of • 
internal communication are wretchedly deficient. 

In spite of all drawbacks, the agricultural produc- 
tion in 1892 is said to have amounted to $1,000,000,- 
000 in value. The sugar plantations, which were 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 1 67 

largely in the provinces of Havana, Matanzas, and 
Santa Clara, were said to cover an area of 2600 square 
miles, and to yield one fourth of the world's supply 
of sugar, more than eighty per cent, of it going to 
the United States. The land appurtenant to sugar 
" ingenios " generally ranged from five hundred to 
10,000 acres in extent, and they were equipped with 
the best machinery, much American and European 
capital being invested in them. The tobacco farms, 
or" vegas," ranged from one hundred to 1000 acres, 
the best being in Pinar del Rio and the southern part 
of Santa Clara. The " cafetales," or coffee planta- 
tions, were much reduced and rather languishing, 
and the indigo culture, which was introduced by 
Las Casas a century ago, had dwindled to small pro- 
portions. Apart from what are regarded as the 
three great staples of Cuba, there was some raising 
of cotton for home use and the cultivation of cacao 
and manioc on a moderate scale. Domestic animals, 
except sheep and goats, thrive on the broad hill- 
slopes of the interior, and cattle-raising is a con- 
siderable industry in the eastern provinces. The 
horse, originally brought from Andalusia, has be- 
come smaller and tougher than his progenitors. 
Fruits can be raised in great profusion and variety, 
but their systematic cultivation is confined to a few 
localities convenient to the seaports. 

The annual product of the sugar crop before the 
last insurrection was not far from 1,000,000 tons, 
while the yield of tobacco was about 500,000 bales. 
Not less than 250,000,000 cigars were manufactured, 
mostly in the city of Havana. According to the 



1 68 THE WEST INDIES 

United States Bureau of Statistics, the imports of 
this country from Cuba for the five years ending 
June 30, 1895, amounted to $346,902,092, and the 
exports thereto to $87,269,138, while the specie 
shipments to the island during the same period were 
$87,544,830 in gold and $298,256 in silver. Apart 
from sugar and other products of the cane, and to- 
bacco, there is little manufacturing done in Cuba, 
and much of its provisions, especially meat and 
flour, are imported. On account of discriminating 
duties, the imports of manufactures came chiefly from 
Spain. Spanish exports to Cuba for the year end- 
ing June 30, 1894, amounted to $23,412,576, while 
the imports from the island were only $7,528,622. 
The total annual exports from Cuba just before the 
revolt of 1895 were about $90,000,000 in value, and 
the imports $60,000,000. Of the total foreign trade, 
about three fourths was with the United States. 
Apart from the political disturbances of recent years, 
the sugar interest has suffered from a serious decline 
in prices and from the competition of the beet-sugar 
product of Europe stimulated by subsidies and pro- 
tective duties. 

There are several lines of steamers connecting 
Havana and other Cuban ports with New York, 
6ome of them making calls at other islands and at 
intermediate ports on the Atlantic coast. A Span- 
ish line runs between Havana and Cadiz, touching 
at Santander and Corunna, a French line between 
Havana and St. Nazaire, and a German line between 
Havana and Hamburg, while an English line from 
Southampton to Vera Cruz, Mexico, stops at Ha- 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 1 69 

vana and St. Thomas on its way. There are also 
regular lines connecting Havana with Vera Cruz 
and Sisal; with Colon, stopping at Nuevitas and 
Gibara; and with San Juan de Puerto Rico, stop- 
ping at the ports on the northern coast of Cuba. 
Coastwise steamers ply from port to port all around 
the island. The principal towns are connected by 
telegraph, which has been established by the govern- 
ment, largely for its own civil and military service, 
and kept under its control. There is a submarine 
cable connecting Havana with Key West and the 
Florida coast, one running around from Havana to 
Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba, another starting 
at Havana which reaches Panama by way of Santi- 
ago, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles, 
and finally one from Havana to Venezuela and 
Brazil by way of Santiago, Haiti, and Santo Do- 
mingo. 

The bone and sinew and to a large extent the 
brains and character of the population of Cuba for 
two generations have been in the native Creoles, 
though the Spaniards have continued to dominate 
politically and even socially, especially in the great 
city of Havana, which contains a full sixth of all the 
people of the island. These " Cubans," as they are 
proud to call themselves, include a considerable ele- 
ment of highly intelligent and cultivated people, 
many of them being educated abroad. A small num- 
ber have attained distinction in science and litera- 
ture, but the general level of education is not high. 
The university at Havana and the colleges there 
and at Puerto Principe and Santiago, as well as most 



I/O THE WEST INDIES 

of the schools of lower grade, are practically con- 
trolled by the Roman Catholic Church and priest- 
hood, but the Sociedad Economica, which was 
formed some years ago, had for its main purpose 
the advancement of popular education. The native 
Cubans are, as a rule, ambitious for the education 
of their children, and the rate of illiteracy is kept up 
largely by the almost total ignorance of the negroes, 
who constitute the plantation hands and manual 
labourers. There are a few libraries and learned in- 
stitutions in the larger cities, and some newspapers 
which, under a severe censorship, have done little 
credit to the communities in which they appear. 
Social and domestic life in the cities, especially in 
Havana, has much of the old Castilian stateliness, 
and women are generally kept in retirement. Girls 
are mostly educated in convents and encouraged to 
marry early, and are not given to accomplishments. 
When young they are often attractive, with jet 
black hair and eyes, but overmuch addicted to cos- 
metics and meretricious ornament. The city houses 
are mostly Spanish in style, close upon the street, 
and built around a patio from which they are enteredw 
While the Church was supported by the State at 
considerable cost, — perhaps in some measure be- 
cause it was so supported, — the more intelligent 
Cubans have been given to a cynical free-thinking, 
leaving the women to attend mass and indulge in 
piety. Among the poorer and more ignorant, there 
was much of the devout superstition common to 
their class in Roman Catholic lands. The peasant 
life is described by some as slovenly and verging 



P*!^!::*:-'-^^ 



f 



U 



\ 



^ 



NATIVE CANDY SELLKR, HAVANA, CUBA. 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS I /I 

into that of the blacks, who live in rude cabins amid 
patches of yams and bananas, careless alike of the 
present and the future. The class known in time of 
trouble as " pacificos " are not merely non-combat- 
ants, but those heedless and submissive beings who 
take life as it comes in a land where it is ** always 
afternoon," and always going to be to-morrow be- 
fore anything happens. But there are also in times 
of peace many thrifty farmers and decent villagers 
capable of making a useful population. 

With an area nearly as large as the State of 
New York, a soil and climate that make it capable 
of a vastly greater production at much less outlay, 
and a situation unrivalled for an independent com- 
merce, Cuba has barely one fifth of the population 
of that State, and its capacity for development is 
yet to be tested. 




CHAPTER XVI 



REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA 



ALMOST from the time that the loyalty of Cuba 
was glorified with the sobriquet of the " Ever 
Faithful Isle," the spirit of revolt against the Spanish 
sovereignty began seriously to assert itself. Little 
sign of it had appeared in the last century, when the 
population, except in two or three cities, was sparse, 
and made up largely of negro slaves, and when the 
native white people had not grown out of their 
Spanish sympathies. The contest for independence 
in the United States, to which both Spaniards and 
Cubans had given aid, and the revolution in France, 
with the disturbances produced by it in Haiti, were 
not wholly without a disquieting effect ; but the 
firm and judicious administration of two enlight- 
ened governors-general in succession. Las Casas 
and Santa Clara, prevented any serious discontent. 
There was indeed a growing antipathy between the 
Cubans and their Spanish rulers, which became more 
marked as the rule was felt to be more oppressive, 
and the Cubans were wont to speak of the Spaniards 
as Godos, or Goths ; but when there was an insurrec- 

j:72 



REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA 1 73 

tion of slaves near Bayamo in 1812 they joined forces 
to put it down with the utmost rigour, and its leader, 
Aponte, and a number of his associates were incon- 
tinently hanged. 

But an uneasy spirit was fomented by the revo- 
lutions which spread from the colonies in South 
America through Central America and Mexico, and 
by the independence of Santo Domingo following 
upon that of Haiti ; and it was fanned when many 
residents of Florida migrated to Cuba after the ces- 
sion of the peninsula to the United States. A 
revolutionary association called *' Soles de Bolivar " 
attempted an uprising in 1823, which was speedily 
frustrated. Then refugees in Mexico planned an 
invasion under the "Liberator" himself, but it 
failed for lack of support. About 1827, a secret 
organisation was formed under the name of the 
" Black Eagle," with headquarters in Mexico and 
branches in the United States and Cuba, but its 
designs were opposed by the slave-holding power, 
and it died out. All efforts to give vitality to revolt 
in Cuba seemed doomed to failure. An appeal was 
made to Spain in 1835 for representation in the 
Cortes, which was at first treated with contempt, 
though the privilege was afterwards granted in a 
delusive form only to be withdrawn. In 1844, there 
was another ** scare " over a threatened uprising of 
slaves, and those concerned in it or suspected of 
planning it were summarily tried, evidence in many 
cases being extorted, and more than 1300 were con- 
victed, and seventy-eight of them were shot. 

Not far from this time began an agitation in and 



174 ^-^-^ WEST INDIES 

out of Cuba for the annexation of the island to the 
United States. It was promoted in this country 
chiefly by the slave power, whose advantage would 
be increased thereby. As far back as 1822, at the 
time of the French invasion of Spain under the 
Due d'Angouleme, there was a suspicion that 
France might try to seize Cuba, or that Great 
Britain might seek to frustrate the attempt by tak- 
ing possession herself; and a party in Havana, 
alarmed at the prospect, made secret overtures to 
President Monroe, which he did not entertain, for 
securing the independence of the island and its sub- 
sequent admission into the Union as a State, to be 
ultimately divided into two States. This matter 
was first made known by John Quincy Adams when 
a member of the House of Representatives in 1836. 
In 1848, President Polk made a serious proposition 
to the Spanish Government, through the American 
Minister at Madrid, for the purchase of Cuba for 
$100,000,000; but this was rejected with little show 
of diplomatic courtesy. It was the next year that 
Narciso Lopez, a Venezuelan by birth, who had 
served in the Spanish army, made his first unsuccess- 
ful attempt to head a revolutionary movement in 
Cuba. Escaping to New York, he got up a filibus- 
tering expedition with six hundred men and effected 
a landing at Cardenas in 1850, but was forced to re- 
embark, and was chased to Key West by a Spanish 
man-of-war. The next year he got away from New 
Orleans with another expedition of four hundred 
and fifty men, with Colonel Crittenden of Ken- 
tucky as second in command, and made a landing 



REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA 1 75 

on the coast thirty miles west of Havana. The 
force was attacked by Spanish troops and divided, 
and Colonel Crittenden and his associates were ruth- 
lessly shot. Shortly afterwards Lopez was captured, 
and on the ist of September, 185 1, he was garrotted. 

These filibustering attempts naturally excited a 
hostile feeling against the United States on the part 
of the Spaniards, and it was at that time that a 
clumsy kind of retaliation was begun, which has 
done much to produce enmity toward Spain in the 
United States. The Black Warrior was a steamer 
plying between New York and Mobile, which had 
been accustomed to call at Havana to land and re- 
ceive mails and passengers without discharging or 
taking freight. On that account, and with a perfect 
understanding that she carried cargoes in her coast- 
ing trade, she had long been allowed to enter and 
clear at Havana, as ** in ballast," and without ex- 
hibiting her manifest. The privilege had been ac- 
corded by written order of the authorities, but 
suddenly, in the early part of 1850, the Black War- 
rior was seized for having an undeclared cargo on 
board, the cargo was confiscated, and a fine of twice 
its value was imposed upon the captain. This he 
refused to pay, and, leaving his vessel behind, he 
made his way to the United States with his crew 
and passengers as best he could, giving the owners 
a chance to put in a claim for indemnity for $300,- 
000. After a delay of five years this was paid. 

In 1852, an attempt was made on the other side 
of the Atlantic to effect an agreement between 
Great Britain, France, and the United States, that 



iy6 THE WEST INDIES 

none of those powers should acquire the island of 
Cuba for itself. This was defeated by the refusal 
of the United States to enter into the bargain. In 
1854, the American Ministers at London, Paris, and 
Madrid, Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Soule, held 
a conference, and signed what was known as the 

Ostend Manifesto." The substance of this was 
that the United States ought to possess Cuba, that 
it would be to the advantage of Spain to sell the 
island, and that under certain conditions, the chief 
of which was the emancipation of slaves by Spain, 
the United States would be justified in taking pos- 
session by force. This caused much discussion, but 
was not upheld by the United States Government. 
In 1858-59, when Buchanan was President, he re- 
commended the purchase of Cuba, and a proposal 
was considered in Congress but never adopted. 

Matters had been quiescent in the island itself for 
some years, and during the American civil war 
they continued in that condition ; but after the close 
of that contest, with the resulting abolition of slav- 
ery, the spirit of revolt was awakened again and 
became more menacing than ever before. In the 
meantime, the oppression of the Spanish power had 
become galling to a people in whom the spirit of 
independence grew year by year. It was not only 
absolute and arbitrary in its exercise, absorbing 
offices and emoluments in the hands of Spaniards 
and depriving Cubans of all share in their own gov- 
ernment, but it was corrupt and extravagant, for the 
profit of the ruling class, while returning none of 
the benefits of costly administration to the people. 



REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA 1 77 

Taxes were heavy, trade was restricted, and indus- 
tries were hampered. Revenue amounting to about 
$26,000,000 a year was raised, and its volume was 
increasing rapidly, while a burdensome debt had 
been incurred ; and the main object was to benefit 
the exhausted finances of Spain at the expense of 
her colony. The organisation of the volunteers 
aggravated the feeling of discontent. These were 
called Los Volunterios de Cuba, or Cuban Volun- 
teers, but they were recruited wholly from the Span- 
iards in the island and became a powerful political 
factor for the support of Spanish authority. Their 
function was to act as a guard in the various towns 
and to protect public property and suppress dis- 
order; and they were liable to be called upon for 
military service. Ordinarily in time of peace they 
served without pay, but were supplied with arms and 
ammunition and furnished with armories by the 
government, and were relieved by their enrolment 
from the greater part of the regular conscript service. 
About the middle of 1867, a conspiracy was formed 
at Bayamo for the liberation of Cuba. The leading 
spirit of the revolutionary movement was a wealthy 
lawyer and planter of Santiago province, Carlos 
Manuel de Cespedes, a man of high character and 
ability and an ardent patriot. Little progress was 
made in organising the movement until the latter 
half of 1868, when the revolution occurred in Spain 
which drove Isabella IL from the throne, to be fol- 
lowed by the virtual dictatorship of General Prim 
and Marshal Serrano, the republic of Castelar, the 
new monarchy under the Italian Amadeo, and the 



178 THE WEST INDIES 

restoration of the Bourbon line in Alfonso XII. 
The actual rising in Cuba started at Yara under the 
lead of Cespedes, and a declaration of independence 
was proclaimed under date of October 10, 1868, at 
Manzanillo. In April, 1869, a constitution was 
adopted at Guaimaro, and Cespedes was made presi- 
dent of the '* Cuban Republic." Slavery was abol- 
ished and freedom of worship guaranteed. 

For two years the insurgents struggled hopefully 
and had practically full possession of the eastern 
half of the island, but they were ill supplied with 
arms and unable to move aggressively into the 
western provinces. Filibustering expeditions came 
rather feebly to their aid, the most effective being 
that of General Thomas Jordan from the United 
States. The Spanish forces were gradually strength- 
ened, and under the command of Count Valmaseda 
carried a devastating and barbarous war of suppres- 
sion into the east, without effectually quelling the 
revolt. An irregular and desultory struggle was 
kept up year after year, but slowly the heart seemed 
to be dying out of the cause of Cuba Libre. In the 
autumn of 1873, Cespedes was deposed by the Cuban 
Congress, and was shortly afterwards found dead, 
killed, it was supposed, by the Spaniards. Then 
Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, Marques de St. 
Lucia, a scion of the old Spanish nobility, was made 
president in the hope of keeping the cause alive 
and getting recognition from the United States. 

The conflict dragged on until General Martinez 
Campos was sent out as captain-general of the 
Spanish forces and governor-general of Cuba. As 



REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA 1 79 

early as 1870 our Government had made a tender of 
its good offices to bring about an adjustment on 
a basis of emancipation and a fair measure of self- 
government, but Spain would not entertain the offer. 
Special sympathy was excited in the fall of 1 87 1 
when some young students of the university at 
Havana were summarily tried by a court-martial of 
volunteers and shot, having been charged with the 
offence of defacing a public tomb in which the body 
of a deceased volunteer had been ostentatiously 
placed. At about the same period reports of the 
barbarities of Valmaseda stirred a feeling of resent- 
ment. But the incident which aroused the sentiment 
of the United States against Spain most violently is 
that known as the " Virginius affair." 

The Virginius was an irresponsible tramp steamer 
which had been a blockade runner, and was cruising 
about in a suspicious manner, with a mongrel crew, 
partly made up of Americans. But she was registered 
as an American vessel, carried the American flag, had 
regularly cleared from Kingston, Jamaica, for Port 
Limon, Costa Rica, October 23, 1873, and was en- 
gaged at the time in no clandestine or illicit opera- 
tions, so far as appeared. She was seized off the 
coast of Jamaica by the Spanish cruiser Tornado, and 
brought into Santiago, November ist, charged with 
piracy. On this absurd charge the governor of 
Santiago de Cuba proceeded, in spite of the vigor- 
ous protests of the American vice-consul, to try 
members of the crew one after another and to have 
them shot, until in six days fifty-three had been dis- 
posed of in that way, including several American 



l8o THE WEST INDIES 

citizens. This gentle operation was interrupted by 
the appearance of a British man-of-war from Ja- 
maica and the success of the consul, after many re- 
buffs, in getting attention to his remonstrances from 
higher authority than the Spanish ofificer in com- 
mand at Santiago. Our Minister at Madrid, General 
Sickles, had been working energetically, and though 
Castelar was then president of the Spanish Repub- 
lic, he had much difficulty in securing the necessary 
interposition. The slaughter had been stopped on 
the 8th by the arrival of the British man-of-war, 
which had been followed in a few days by Com- 
mander Gushing with the Wyoming, of the United 
States navy ; and finally, on the 26th, after asking 
for his passports, General Sickles secured compliance 
with his demands that the Virginius and the surviv- 
ors of the crew be given up, that the perpetrators of 
the massacre be punished, and the flag of the United 
States saluted. Subsequently an indemnity of $80,- 
CXXD was obtained for the families of those Ameri- 
cans who had been shot. 

This incident had a lasting effect upon the senti- 
ment of the people of the United States toward 
Spain in her relation to Cuba. In November, 1875, 
Secretary of State Hamilton Fish addressed a com- 
munication to the Hon. Caleb Gushing, American 
Minister at Madrid, to be laid before the Spanish 
Government, remonstrating against the continuance 
of the existing condition in Cuba, and announcing 
" with reluctance " the conclusion that the time 
was at hand when it would become the duty of the 
Government to intervene " with the view of bring- 



REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CUBA l8l 

ing to an end a disastrous and destructive conflict 
and of restoring peace in the island of Cuba." 
President Grant, in his annual message to Congress 
in December of the same year, after giving at length 
reasons for not recognising the independence of 
Cuba or according belligerent rights to the insur- 
gents, declared that intervention might become 
necessary to terminate the strife which was so 
injurious to the interests of the United States. 

Doubtless these events hastened the efforts of 
Spain to bring the war to an end, which was at last 
accomplished by General Campos by the treaty of 
El Zanjon, in February, 1878. The life of the in- 
surrection was no doubt exhausted, but it was 
charged that its surviving leaders were bought off. 
The terms included a general amnesty and oblivion, 
and liberty to leave the island without molestation, 
and there was a promise of " the same political 
privileges, organic and administrative, enjoyed by 
the island of Puerto Rico," which meant little more 
than barren representation in the Spanish Cortes. 
Assurances of other reforms were given as an induce- 
ment for signing the treaty, and General Campos 
gained the credit and prestige of pacifying the 
" Ever Faithful Isle " after a vain struggle of ten 
years for her freedom, which it was said to have 
cost Spain 100,000 men and $200,000,000 to defeat. 
The total number of Spanish soldiers engaged, how- 
ever, was a little over 155,000, besides 80,000 volun- 
teers, and the number of deaths among the former 
during the war, according to the official records, 
was 81,098. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 

WHATEVER promises or assurances of reform 
may have been made by General Campos to 
secure the peace of 1878, they were not kept, and 
the grievances of the island grew heavier. The cost 
of the war was put upon Cuba, and a debt that 
began with $3,000,000 in 1864 was increased to 
$175,000,000. Taxes were multiplied and rigor- 
ously exacted in the face of a decline in the great 
sugar interest, and official corruption continued. 
General Pando, in a speech in the Cortes in 1890, 
gave a list of peculations which he reckoned at $40,- 
000,000 in the aggregate ; and a writer in the Ateneo 
de Madrid, in 1895, declared that the custom-house 
frauds since the close of the war amounted to $100,- 
000,000. The exhaustion of the last insurrection 
had not subdued the spirit of revolt, and it was not 
long before a new revolution was plotted from the 
outside. There were many Cubans, refugees or 
voluntary exiles, scattered over the world, and no 
less than 40,000 lived in the United States, many of 
whom had become American citizens. A '* Gran 

182 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 83 

Junta " was formed with headquarters in New 
York and with subordinate juntas in different parts 
of the United States and Spanish America, and 
even in the leading cities of Europe, while secret 
societies were organised in the island itself. The 
purpose was to lay plans, raise funds, and make 
preparations which should free Cuba from Spanish 
rule and establish her independence. By the begin- 
ning of 1895, the revolutionary party was said to 
comprise one hundred and forty societies, or juntas. 

The leading organiser and promoter of the revolu- 
tion at that time was Jose Marti, a native Cuban 
who had been educated in Spain and had lived long 
in the United States. He planned a general upris- 
ing in all the provinces of Cuba to take place on the 
24th of February, 1895, and organised an expedition 
which was to start from Fernandina, Florida, with 
three vessels, a considerable force of men, and war 
supplies and munitions. The departure of this ex- 
pedition was prevented by the United States authori- 
ties, and Marti set out for Santo Domingo to concert 
plans with General Maximo Gornez and other lead- 
ers of the former rebellion. Two of the chiefs in 
the new movement were the mulatto brothers, An- 
tonio and Jose Maceo, who were in Costa Rica. 
The rising took place on the appointed day, but 
only in a feeble manner in Santiago province under 
Henry Brooks and Pedro Perez, and in Matanzas 
under Manuel Garcia. Marti and Gomez issued a 

manifesto " from Santo Domingo on March 25th. 
The Maceos, Dr. Agramonte, and others succeeded 
in landing near Baracoa, March 31st, and Marti and 



1 84 THE WEST INDIES 

Gomez arrived at Cape Maisi, April 13th, with eighty 
men. When the movement began, the Spanish cap- 
tain-general, Emilio Calleja Isasi, had only 19,000 
troops at his command, 9000 of whom were in the 
eastern department ; and though martial law was 
proclaimed in Matanzas and Santiago and several 
arrests were made, the revolt gathered head in the 
latter province. A battalion of 7000 men was brought 
from Puerto Rico, and Calleja was superseded by 
Marshal Martinez Campos, who had ended the 
former rebellion, and who now came out with rein- 
forcements from Spain. He landed at Guantanamo, 
April i6th, to take personal command in the field. 
The insurgent leaders effected a junction and 
drummed up recruits in the eastern provinces, most 
of them negroes. 

The first care of these leaders was to organise a 
semblance of civil government. At a formal meet- 
ing at Mejorana on the 4th of May, in which Marti, 
Gomez, and Antonio Maceo took part, a call was 
issued for the selection of representatives of the 
Cuban people to form a Constituent Assembly. 
Marti was killed in a skirmish with a Spanish force, 
encountered on the way to the coast, where he was 
to embark for Jamaica with the intention of going 
to the United States. This event delayed proceed- 
ings somewhat, but members of the Constituent 
Assembly were chosen, and it met at Jimaguayu, 
September 13, 1895, declared the independence of 
Cuba and its separation from the Spanish monarchy 
as a republic, and adopted a provisional constitution 
which was to have effect for two years unless the 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 85 

freedom of the island was sooner accomplished. 
The Assembly chose the venerable Salvador Cisne- 
ros y Betancourt of Puerto Principe as president 
of the new-born republic, and Bartolome Masso as 
vice-president. Heads of administrative depart- 
ments were also named, and Maximo Gomez was 
elected commander-in-chief of the army, and An- 
tonio Maceo second in command with the title of 
lieutenant-general. Tomas Estrada Palma, head of 
the .Gran Junta, was chosen to be ** delegate pleni- 
potentiary and general agent abroad of the Cuban 
Republic." A capital was established in the moun- 
tains of Cubitas, and a form of civil administration 
for provinces and prefectures was organised and 
carried out in part, though the actual governing 
power was chiefly exercised through the military 
officers. 

In the meantime military movements were actively 
afoot. The insurgents got the advantage in the 
first encounters in the east, including one with a 
part of the forces of Campos near Bayamo, in which 
the Spanish general Santocildes was killed. They 
made their way into the province of Puerto Prin- 
cipe, while General Lacret succeeded in landing with 
an expedition from Jamaica, and Roloff and Sanchez 
arrived with another from Key West. 

Baffled by the elusive tactics of the insurgent 
bands, General Campos prepared for the fall cam- 
paign by rehabilitating and strengthening the old 
" trocha " across the island from Jucaro to Moron, 
clearing timber away from the line, establishing 
forts and blockhouses at short intervals, and plan- 



1 86 THE WEST INDIES 

ning to station 50,000 troops on this barrier to con- 
fine the insurrection to the east, where he expected 
effectually to suppress it.- There was only a se- 
ries of desultory movements and preparations until 
November, when Generals Pando and Marin arrived 
with 30,000 more troops from Spain. The insur- 
gents did not concentrate and wait to be suppressed, 
but by dividing into small bands and moving about 
in a bewildering manner they worked their way 
west of the trocha to the vicinity of Santo Espiritu 
and then to the valley of Cienfuegos. When Cam- 
pos undertook to make a stand against their advance, 
with a force concentrated in front of them, they 
scattered and eluded him, and zigzagged back and 
forth until they got into Matanzas province. If 
they encountered a small Spanish detachment they 
worsted it; and if they found a strong one in their 
way they evaded it. So they gathered force as they 
went, coercing those to join them who would not 
do sc voluntarily, and appearing at the beginning 
of 1896 within a dozen miles of Havana with a force 
of nearly 12,000 men. Maceo made his way into 
Pinar del Rio with 4000 men, and Gomez stopped 
the cane-grinding and ravaged the plantations of the 
rich provinces of Matanzas and Havana, to deprive 
the Spanish army of its chief support. 

The general policy of Campos was one of concilia- 
tion, and he could find no chance to conciliate. His 
military campaign was systematic on paper, but it 
was deranged and his forces were scattered by the 
irregular and baffling movements of the insurgents, 
who were gathering strength and carrying every- 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 8/ 

thing before them, at a distance from the cities and 
military stations. In short, Campos's whole plan 
of campaign was a failure, because his efforts to 
carry it out were constantly thwarted. A cry was 
raised for his recall, and he left Cuba, January 17th, 
turning the command over to General Sabas Marin. 
His successor. General Nicola Valeriano Weyler, 
Marques de Tenerife, arrived at Havana, February 
loth, to institute a campaign of vigour and of rigour. 
General Weyler had a command in the former war, 
and by his ruthless methods earned the sobriquet of 
the " butcher." He now proceeded to justify it. 
Maceo had been having things his own way in Pinar 
del Rio ; and, in spite of a new trocha which General 
Marin established from Mariel to Majana in the 
western province, he got back to join Gomez in 
ravaging, burning, and destroying in Matanzas and 
Havana. 

General Weyler undertook to gather the scattered 
Spanish forces and reorganise an army for attack 
upon the insurgent " army," which consisted of 
agile bands of guerillas chiefly engaged in avoiding 
attack while devastating the country. He ordered 
the " pacificos " of the rural sections, who were as- 
sumed to be aiding and supporting the insurgents, 
to be concentrated in the towns under military 
guard, about which were " zones of cultivation," 
where they were to sustain themselves as best they 
might. The Spanish commander then set forth 
on a campaign of destruction and extirpation of 
rebels, as if determined to " make a solitude and 
call it peage." He found his concentrated army 



1 88 THE WEST INDIES 

effective only for the work of general slaughter and 
devastation, being unable to bring the armed forces 
of the enemy into actual engagement. False re- 
ports of victories were sent abroad, and foreign cor- 
respondents were not allowed to disseminate facts. 
The province of Pinar del Rio was declared to be 
" pacified," whereupon Maceo sacked Batabano, 
and then made his way back west of the Mariel- 
Majana trocha, where his principal lieutenant, Ber- 
mudez, an ex-bandit chief, had been spreading 
terror by plundering and burning the unresisting 
towns and plantations. General Weyler then de- 
voted himself to strengthening the trocha and 
stationing 30,000 men along the line. 

During the marauding campaign of the summer, 
Jose Maceo, Sanchez, Mirabel, and Zayas among 
the insurgent officers had been killed, and Gomez 
began to work his way back through Santa Clara to 
Camaguey. Early in the year, Calixto Garcia, after 
three unsuccessful attempts to get away from the 
United States coast with filibustering expeditions, 
had succeeded in landing with one hundred and 
eight men and some munitions and supplies in 
eastern Cuba, where he strove to rally the languish- 
ing spirit of revolt. In the autumn Gomez was 
moving toward the eastern provinces, while Maceo 
was in the hills of Pinar del Rio, with Weyler's 
army threatening to close in upon him from the 
fortified line of the new trocha. The Cuban chief 
succeeded in making his way around the trocha with 
a small escort over Mariel Bay, and endeavoured by 
couriers to rally the scattered forces of the insurrec- 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 89 

tion left behind by Gomez in Matanzas and Havana, 
at a rendezvous near Punta Brava. While awaiting 
concentration there he was suddenly attacked by a 
band of Spaniards under Major Cirujeda and killed. 
He was recognised only when the dead were stripped 
by prowlers, and his body was then rescued and 
carried away by Pedro Diaz. His staff surgeon, 
Dr. Zatucha, surrendered, and was accused of having 
betrayed his chief. 

The depressing effect of Maceo's death and the 
retirement of Gomez from the western provinces 
were not overcome by the accession of strength 
brought by the comparatively few and feeble fili- 
bustering expeditions which succeeded in landing, 
among the many actively promoted and supported 
by the Cuban Junta and other sympathisers in the 
United States. The efforts to get help to the island 
from that quarter were bafifled by the vigilance of 
the American authorities. The eastern provinces 
were in the hands of the insurgents, except a few 
points held by Spanish garrisons, like Santiago, 
Manzanillo, and Holguin, and there was little 
chance for aggressive operations there. Early in 
1897, Weyler, assuming that the western provinces 
were " pacified," proceeded upon a campaign of 
slaughter and devastation eastward as far as the fer- 
tile region between Santa Clara and Trinidad, while 
Gomez, Garcia, and Bandera were indulging in des- 
ultory movements still farther east. The raiding 
bands left behind in Matanzas and Havana were 
under the command of General Lacret. He was 
relieved by command of Gomez for being too lenient 



1 90 THE WEST IN DIES 

with '* pacificos "-who did not support him, while 
those " concentrated " out of his reach were dying 
of disease and starvation. He was succeeded by 
General Rodriguez, but the only result of the opera- 
tions in the west in the spring of 1897 was to destroy 
property, paralyse industry and trade, and aggravate 
the terrible distress which was almost universal. 

There was the usual lull in the summer, but the 
horrors of the Weyler campaign of slaughter and 
destruction and the suffering and wholesale death of 
the wretched " reconcentrados " were producing a 
profound impression in the United States. In 
August, Canovas del Castillo, the Prime Minister 
of Spain, who had sent General Weyler out to suc- 
ceed Campos, and who insisted upon the policy of 
forcing submission before considering measures of 
conciliation and reform, was assassinated, and was 
succeeded by Praxedes Mateo Sagasta, who pro- 
ceeded to reverse that policy and to propose meas- 
ures of conciliation and reform as a means of bringing 
the insurrection to an end. To carry out the new 
policy, General Ramon Blanco was sent to supersede 
Weyler as governor-general, and the latter returned 
at once to Spain to join in the opposition to a prof- 
fered scheme of autonomy for Cuba. 

Hostilities were virtually in suspense, save for 
some spasmodic movements here and there, and on 
the arrival of Blanco, in November, 1897, he pro- 
ceeded with his new policy of pacification. Partly 
in response to remonstrances from the United States 
Government, the orders of reconcentration were re- 
voked, and measures of relief for the suffering and 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE I9I 

starving " pacificos " were taken or permitted, for 
they were little better off in their devastated homes 
than in the guarded towns. The insurgent forces 
were scattered, exhausted, and disheartened, and 
the Spanish army was demoralised. A scheme of 
autonomy, which had not yet been approved by the 
Spanish Cortes, and whose chief feature was the 
creation of an insular parliament with restricted 
powers, was laboriously put into effect, though 
utterly repudiated by all sympathisers with the re- 
bellion, and disliked by most of the resident Span- 
iards. It had the support of a small autonomist 
party, chiefly in Havana ; and by most others was 
regarded either as visionary and impracticable, or as 
a delusion and a snare. In the United States there 
was little confidence in its being accepted by the 
Cubans or continued in good faith by the Spanish 
Government. 

The Cuban " Constitution " of 1895 had provided 
for a new Constituent assembly, to meet in October, 
1897, and an electoral law was passed by the ** Ad- 
ministrative Council " for the selection of delegates 
from the six provinces. Under this, twenty-four 
representatives were elected by the " citizens of the 
republic," including those who were serving as 
soldiers in the field, and the sessions of the As- 
sembly were held in October and November, 1897. 
A new constitution was adopted, to be in force two 
years unless independence was sooner achieved, and 
new ofBcers of government were chosen. Bartolom^ 
Masso was made president, and Domingo Mendez 
Capote vice-president, and heads of departments 



192 THE WEST INDIES 

were elected by the Assembly as before. Major- 
General Maximo Gomez was again made general-in- 
chief of the army, and Calixto Garcia was made 
lieutenant-general and second in command. The 
village of Esperanza in the Sierra de Cubitas con- 
tinued to be the nominal capital, but it was captured 
by a Spanish force in January, 1898, the govern- 
ment of the " republic " making good its escape. 

In December, 1896, President Cleveland devoted 
much space in his last message to the United States 
Congress to a review and discussion of the situation 
in Cuba, and declared that the time might arrive 

" when considerations of humanity and a desire to see a 
rich and fertile country, intimately related to us, saved 
from complete devastation, will constrain our Govern- 
ment to such action as will subserve the interests thus 
involved [those previously discussed] and at the same 
time preserve to Cuba and its inhabitants an opportunity 
to enjoy the blessings of peace." 

In his first annual message to Congress, in Decem- 
ber, 1897, President McKinley reviewed the situation 
in the light of the events of that time, giving 
reasons against a recognition of Cuban independ- 
ence or belligerency, accepting the change of policy 
adopted by Spain as sincere, and favouring an ami- 
cable settlement of all difficulties ; but in closing he 
said : 

^ " If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed 
upon us by our obligations to ourselves, to civilisation 
and humanity, to intervene with force, it shall be with- 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 93 

out fault on our part, and only because the necessity for 
such action will be so clear as to command the support 
and approval of the civilised world." 

While Governor-General Blanco was endeavouring 
to carry out the plan of autonomy in January, 1898, 
there were riots in Havana in opposition to the move- 
ment, in which the volunteers took the leading part, 
and there was a display of hostile feeling toward the 
United States, which seemed to menace the lives 
and property of American citizens. The Atlantic 
squadron of the United States navy had been moved 
down from Hampton Roads, Va., to Key West,Fla., 
and on the 25th of January the second-class battle- 
ship Maine was sent to Havana, under the guise of 
a *' friendly visit," but obviously as a precaution in 
case American interests should need defending. 
On the night of February 15th, the Maine was de- 
stroyed by an explosion, which was afterwards 
decided by a court of inquiry to be external and 
below its hull, and probably that of a submarine 
mine discharged from the shore. Congress was 
then in session, reports of the atrocities of Weyler's 
campaign and the sufferings of the " reconcentra- 
dos " were still rife, and there was much debate of 
intervention, peaceable or forcible, for the termina- 
tion of the warfare in Cuba. The fact that the case 
of the insurgents had become desperate, and that 
they were in danger of losing all they had struggled 
for, joined with the belief that the Maine had been 
blown up at the instigation or with the connivance 
of Spanish authorities or ofificers, tended irresistibly 
to bring about intervention " with force," though 



194 THE WEST INDIES 

the President appeared to be striving by diplomacy 
to avert the necessity. 

The drift toward hostility was so strong that on 
the 5th of April, General Fitzhugh Lee, the Ameri- 
can consul-general at Havana, abandoned his post, 
after warning all Americans of the expediency of 
leaving Cuba, and after aiding the departure of all 
who desired it. On April nth, the President sent 
a special message to Congress in which, after re- 
viewing the situation anew, he asked that body to 

"authorise the President to take measures to secure a 
full and final termination of hostilities between the Gov- 
ernment of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure 
in the island the establishment of a stable government 
capable of maintaining order and observing its inter- 
national obligations, insuring peace and tranquillity and 
the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use 
the military and naval forces of the United States as 
may be necessary for these purposes." 

This led to the adoption of a joint resolution on 
the 19th of April, declaring that the people of Cuba 
"are and of right ought to be free and independ- 
ent," demanding that the Government of Spain re- 
linquish its authority in the island and withdraw its 
land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, 
and directing the President to use the land and naval 
forces of the United States ** to carry these resolu- 
tions into effect." This was immediately followed 
by the departure of the Spanish Minister from 
Washington and of the American Minister from 
Madrid, an order for the blockade of the ports of 
Cuba, and a call for 125,000 volunteers for the United 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 95 

States army; and on April 25th, there was a formal 
declaration by act of Congress that war existed and 
had existed " since the 21st day of April, A.D. 
1898, including that day, between the United States 
of America and the kingdom of Spain." 

During the war, which was suspended by the sign- 
ing of a peace protocol at Washington on the 12th 
of August, the blockade of the ports of Cuba was 
maintained, and insignificant attacks were made 
upon the defences of Matanzas and Cardenas ; but the 
decisive events were the destruction of the Spanish 
fleet of four cruisers and two torpedo-boat destroy- 
ers, under Admiral Cervera, outside of the harbour 
of Santiago, on the 3d of July, and the surrender of 
the city of Santiago de Cuba to the land forces of 
the United States on the 14th of that month. 

Cervera had left the Cape Verde Islands for the 
West Indies on the 29th of April, and after cruising 
about in a manner that seemed somewhat aimless, 
had taken refuge in the harbour of Santiago on May 
19th. As soon as this was known, an American 
" flying squadron," under Commodore W. S. 
Schley, took up its position off the entrance to the 
harbour, and was joined by the main body of the 
American fleet, under Acting Rear-Admiral W. T. 
Sampson, on the ist of June, the latter officer then 
taking command. There was some bombarding of 
the defences and an attempt to block the channel 
by sinking the collier Merrimac across it, on the 
night of June 3d, at a point within the line of the 
outer forts, — a perilous venture heroically carried 
out under the fire of the enemy's guns by Lieuten- 



196 THE WEST INDIES 

ant Hobson and six men, who were captured and 
held as prisoners until exchanged a month later. 
A land force was immediately sent to co-operate 
with the navy at Santiago. A body of six hundred 
marines had landed at Caimanera on Guantanamo 
Bay, June loth, and had a sharp skirmish to hold 
the place ; and on the 22d, the Fifth Army Corps 
of about 12,000 men arrived from Tampa, under 
command of Major-General W, R. Shafter, landing 
at Siboney and Daiquiri east of Santiago. In 
making the advance up the heights for the attack 
on the city, a part of the force encountered the 
enemy at Sevilla, or " Las Guasimas," on the 24th 
of June, and had a fierce and deadly struggle in 
breaking the way for the army over a narrow trail. 
On July 1st and 2d, there was hard fighting in the 
taking of El Caney and San Juan, and the Ameri- 
can loss was two hundred and thirty-one killed and 
1364 wounded, but the victory over the Spaniards 
was complete. 

On the 3d of July, Admiral Cervera, acting under 
orders from Captain-General Blanco, made a dash 
out of Santiago Bay with his fleet and attempted to 
escape along the coast to the west. There was a 
terrible running battle, the American cruiser Brook- 
lyn and the battle-ships Iowa, Indiana, Oregon, and 
Texas joining in the attack and destroying or driv- 
ing ashore all the Spanish cruisers, with dreadful 
destruction of life and the capture of all the surviv- 
ing officers and crews. A demand was then imme- 
diately made upon the commander of the Spanish 
land forces. General Toral, for the surrender of the 



ACHIEVEMENT OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 1 97 

city of Santiago and the adjoining territory, and 
after considerable parley and negotiating the demand 
was complied with, and on the 17th of July the 
United States flag was raised on the government 
building. Brigadier-General Leonard Wood was 
put in command as military governor. 

In the peace protocol already referred to, it was 
agreed that " Spain will renounce all claim to all 
sovereignty over, and all her rights over the island 
of Cuba," and that " Spain will immediately evacu- 
ate Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the other islands under 
Spanish sovereignty in the Antilles." Three com- 
missioners were to be appointed by each party to 
the agreement to settle the details of the evacua- 
tion. There were about 1 18,000 troops to be trans- 
ported to Spain, and the commissioners met in 
Havana early in October to direct the manner of 
their removal, with the expectation that the process 
would be completed by the end of the year. Plans 
were adopted for organising an army of occupation 
during the autumn, which was to be landed upon 
the island as the Spanish troops departed. This 
army was to be under the command of General 
John R. Brooke, as military governor of Cuba, and 
there was to be a department commander in each 
province. General Fitzhugh Lee, the last consul- 
general at Havana, was to have command of the 
troops in Havana province, and General William 
Ludlow was made military governor of the city. 

An assembly of Cuban deputies, consisting of 
eight delegates from each of the six corps of the 
Cuban army, representing also the six provinces of 



198 THE WEST INDIES 

the island, met at Santa Cruz del Sur, on the 24th of 
October, to take the preliminary steps toward the 
organisation of a permanent government for the re- 
public. Early in November, President Masso and 
other officers of the " Provisional Administrative 
Council " resigned their offices, and the assembly 
appointed a committee of five, of which Rafael M. 
Portuondo was president, to take charge of affairs 
until the reassembling of the constituent body, for 
which no date was fixed. One of the functions of 
the committee was to secure the disbandment of the 
Cuban army and a general submission of the people 
to the temporary authority of the United States, 
pending the organisation of an independent civil 
government. Before its work began, Domingo 
Mendez Capote, late vice-president of the " Cuban 
Republic," took the place of Portuondo as the pre- 
siding officer. The assembly also created a com- 
mission of five members, with General Calixto 
Garcia at its head, to visit Washington and represent 
the interests of Cuba and the wishes of its people 
before the President and Congress of the United 
States, with reference to proceedings tor the organ- 
isation of a permanent system of administration. 
Captain-General Blanco resigned after the arrange- 
ments for evacuation were concluded, and his suc- 
cessor. General Adolf o Jimenez Castellanos was 
the last Spanish governor-general. Thus the long 
struggle for the independence of Cuba was brought 
to a close, and four hundred years of Spanish sov- 
ereignty in the western world ended almost where 
it began after the first discoveries of Columbus, 



"^^M 


^^M 


'fh%^^^ 


^^ 




^^^^ 



CHAPTER XVIII 

NATURAL ASPECTS AND RESOURCES OF JAMAICA 

A LITTLE less than ninety miles south of the 
eastern part of Cuba lies the island of Jamaica, 
third in size of the Greater Antilles. It is about 
one hundred and forty-five miles long from South- 
East Point at the eastern end to South Negril Point 
in the west. Its extreme width, where it runs down 
into the promontory of Portland Point on the south, 
is fifty-three miles, but the general width of the 
middle section is about forty-five miles. It falls 
away to the east to twenty miles and then tapers to 
a point, and toward the western end it narrows 
more abruptly, chiefly on account of a north-westerly 
trend of the southern coast. Its shape is sometimes 
compared to that of a huge turtle, and its area is 
about 4200 square miles. On the southern shore 
and well toward the east, in the angle between the 
wide and narrow parts, is a deep inlet, or lagoon, 
almost inclosed on its southern side by a long sand 
spit which leaves a channel barely one hundred and 
sixty feet wide. Within this nearly land-locked 
bay is Kingston, the capital and chief city, and on 

199 



200 THE WEST INDIES 

the inclosing arm of the sand spit was that Port 
Royal where revelled and rioted the slavers, buc- 
caneers, and pirates in the wicked old times of ill- 
gotten wealth. 

Here is still the chief port, and the plains and 
slopes which extend backward and upward from the 
shore were the scene of the old colony whence 
spread the plantations and the groves and gardens 
that constituted the Jamaica of former days. Thence 
have scattered the communities which now occupy 
the island. The coast is indented with many other 
bays which afford safe harbours, and there are now 
several ports more or less visited. East of King- 
ston and not far from the end of the island is Port 
Morant, and a few miles west of the capital is Old 
Harbour, above which Diego Colon planted the 
capital of his colony and called it Santiago de la 
Vega. It still lingers, and has always been called 
Spanish Town by the English. Well toward the 
western end of the island on this coast is Bluefields 
Bay with the port of Savana la Mar, and at Green 
Island on the west coast is a small harbour. Pro- 
ceeding eastward along the northern coast we find 
in succession the ports of Montego Bay, Falmouth, 
St. Ann Bay, where Columbus spent his last dreary 
months in the western world. Port Maria, Annotto, 
and Port Antonio. 

Jamaica has no such fringe of coral reefs as deco- 
rates the edges of so large a part of Cuba, nor are 
there swamp areas along its coasts. For the most 
part it is " rock-bound," and in many places steep 
ridges and broken cliffs come to the water's edge. 



ASPECTS AND RESOURCES OF JAMAICA 20I 

Off to the south-east are the Morant Keys, and 
forty miles to the south is Pedro Bank, a long sub- 
marine plateau, from which some scattered keys 
rise to the surface. The three small islands to the 
north-west, called the Caymans — Grand Cayman, 
Little Cayman, and Cayman Brae — belong politically 
to Jamaica, though geographically they are part of 
the extension of Cuba westward from Cape Cruz, 
which is mostly under water. These islands have 
an area of less than two hundred square miles, and 
support a primitive population of about 4300, chiefly 
engaged in gathering cocoanuts and green turtles 
for export. 

The general level of Jamaica is somewhat higher 
than that of Cuba, and a larger proportion of its 
area is occupied by mountain ranges or broken into 
ridges and deep valleys. The geological structure 
is much the same, consisting of a shell of limestone 
over a skeleton of primitive or metamorphic rock, 
which protrudes here and there in granite or mica- 
ceous schist, interspersed with porphyry, quartz, and 
spar. The loftiest mountain range is in the east, 
and as one approaches the island from that direction 
a delicate blue haze hangs over these heights, which 
has given them the name of ** Blue Mountains." 
Their general altitude is about 6000 feet, but they 
rise to 7400 in Cold Ridge. There is a sharp crest 
running east and west, from which the slope is 
gradual toward the north, breaking into lower and 
lower ridges with intervening valleys, and spreading 
into plains here and there down to the coast, while 
on the south the descent is more abrupt and some- 



202 THE WEST INDIES 

times stops suddenly in overhanging cliffs at the 
verge of the sea. Westward of an elevation of 4460 
feet, called Catherine Hill, there is a depression, 
comprising a region of variegated uplands, beyond 
which again spring ridges and broken plateaus, 
sometimes reaching 3000 feet above the sea-level. 
Again the'surface falls away, and the widest areas 
of level country are in the west. There is a depres- 
sion across the island where the valley of the Black 
River opens to the south and that of the Great River 
to the north, and beyond that are more highlands 
which end in a bold promontory called the Dolphin's 
Head, 3500 feet high, at the very extremity of the 
island. Traces of volcanic action in remote ages 
have been found near Spanish Town. 

The central uplands are mostly rugged and broken 
with ravines and hollows. There are wild amphi- 
theatres and secluded gullies sometimes called 
"cockpits." On the northern slope for sixty miles 
eastward from Great River is a region of gorges and 
caverns from which the surface water often disap- 
pears into " sightless chasms," to well up again at 
widely separated places, and tumble in cataracts or 
gush and flow in quiet springs. Sometimes the 
course of subterranean streams can be traced by 
these outlets in a manner to show that the interior 
slopes vary from those of the surface. There are 
many lakelets among the hills, but often the water 
makes its way through clefts in the limestone shell 
into underground reservoirs. Of the many streams 
which flow from the mountains and hills to the sea, 
few are entitled to be called rivers. The largest is 



ASPECTS AND RESOURCES OF JAMAICA 203 

the Black, which may be navigated for thirty miles 
by flat-bottomed craft. The Minho, or Dry River, 
comes down from the central uplands to the southern 
coast, but most of its course is too steep or too shal- 
low for useful navigation, and all streams are liable 
to become torrents in the wet season and to dis- 
appear almost entirely in the dry. The Cobre, 
which flows into the lagoon on which Kingston is 
situated, has little depth of water, and in a part of 
its course runs out of sight. The principal streams 
on the north are the Great, the Martha Brae, and 
the White. The eastern end of the island is drained 
toward the north by the Rio Grande and toward the 
south by the Plantain Garden River, both small 
streams, with numerous rivulets running into them. 
There are some flat spaces on the island described 
as plains or vales. The largest of these is the 

Plain of Liguanea," which includes the region of 
Kingston and Spanish Town. On the north of the 
mountains is the plain of " Thomas in the Vale," 
and in the east the " Vale of Bath." 

Minerals have been found concealed within the 
rocky structure of Jamaica, but no systematic exam- 
ination of their whereabouts or their extent has ever 
been made. There have been unprofitable efforts at 
mining of copper, iron, and lead ; traces of gold and 
silver have been found, and there are deposits of co- 
balt and antimony ; but whether there are riches to 
be dug from the earth is yet to be ascertained. There 
is plenty of ungarnered wealth on the surface. Much 
of the mountain region is covered with forests, con- 
taining mahogany, rosewood, lignum-vitae, ebony, 



204 ^^^ IV£ST INDIES 

satinwood, and cedar, as well as logwood, fustic, 
and others which afford dyestuffs. The palm and 
the bamboo are common, and the silk cotton and 
the pimento are almost characteristic of this island, 
— both trees of beauty, and the latter furnishing large 
supplies of that aromatic product, allspice. It is a 
wide-spreading and picturesque evergreen. One 
variety of the palm, the Palma Christi, is a source 
of castor oil. 

The general verdure and vegetation that richly 
clothes the island is mostly that common to these 
tropic lands of the Caribbean Sea. There is a 
great variety of ferns — some great tree-ferns — in 
the mountains, and orchids lavishly decorate the 
forests, while a profusion of flowering plants and 
shrubs delight the eye, including the aloe, the yucca, 
and the datura, which are not so common elsewhere. 
Maize grows luxuriantly, and willingly yields two 
or three crops a year to the industrious, and of pro- 
saic vegetables and fruits there is no end. The list 
suggests a lesson in geography or a passage from the 
encyclopaedia — yams, plantains, cassava, ochra, 
arrowroot, cacao, ginger, breadfruit, tamarinds, 
mangoes, pineapples, oranges, lemons, and so on, 
and so on. Nearly all European vegetables can be 
raised successfully on the higher lands, and guinea 
grass waves profusely over wide stretches of pasture- 
land, making cattle-raising an easy and profitable 
process. A few plants were brought from Africa in 
the old slave-trading days, including the poisonous 
horse bean, which was used in weird incantations, 
and to which the superstitious blacks still attribute 



ASPECTS AND RESOURCES OF JAMAICA 20$ 

miraculous qualities. Out of the porous branches 
of the " trumpet tree" they make the Koromanti 
flute, whose sweet and melancholy notes are so 
familiar among them. But for a long time the soil 
of the fertile plains, valleys, and hillsides of Jamaica 
has been mainly devoted to the cultivation of those 
two exotic plants, the sugar cane and the coffee 
bush, because they afforded the most profitable 
crops in the days of slave labour. Latterly there 
has been an increase of tobacco, cacao, and fruits. 

Of animal life there is plenty, as in all tropic 
climes where the land teems with vegetation ; but, 
like the other islands, Jamaica is poor in native 
quadrupeds. Of what she originally had there 
remains the agouti, some lingering remnants of the 
monkey tribe, and a pestilent breed of rats which 
no ingenuity has been able to exterminate. The 
mongoose was introduced from the East to attempt 
the task, but it has given so much attention to 
catching snakes and birds and to sucking eggs and 
multiplying its own species that it has become al- 
most as much of a nuisance as the rodents it was 
expected to destroy. There is the alligator and the 
usual variety of lizards, including the ugly but edible 
— for those who like that sort of thing — iguana. 

The land crab is particularly multitudinous, and in 
the spring his armies emerge from the rocks and 
cliffs and march to the coast for the annual cere- 
mony of depositing eggs in the sand at the edge of 
the surf. The males lead the way and stand guard, 
and when the young are hatched the hosts return 
through the thickets and woods to their retreats in 



206 THE WEST INDIES 

the interior, encountering many perils and enemies 
on the way. MilHons of them are fortunately de- 
voured, or there would soon be no room for anything 
else. There are objectionable reptiles and insects, 
but few that are noxious, though the scorpion and 
centipede are uncommonly large and vicious. There 
are several varieties of fireflies that illumine the 
night. The seal and manatee are found on the 
coast, turtles are abundant, and the waters swarm 
with fish. There is a great variety of waterfowl, 
and birds of the air are many, including pigeons and 
parrots and others of brilliant plumage, and over 
twenty species of song birds. The domestic animals 
of Europe were introduced early and have always 
thrived, many of them running wild in the uplands. 
The climate of Jamaica has some peculiarities of 
its own, and differs considerably on the two sides 
of the central mountain range, especially in the 
eastern part, and on the different levels above the 
sea. The moisture brought by the trade-winds is 
precipitated much more heavily on the northern than 
the southern side, and while the annual rainfall on 
the" north slope of the Blue Mountains is about one 
hundred inches, it is only forty-four at Kingston^ 
and the plains about Spanish Town are subject to 
drought. There are practically two wet seasons of 
six or eight weeks each, — in May and June and in 
October and November, — with a period of compara- 
tive dryness between, much addicted, however, to 
sudden and violent storms of short duration. It is 
in this interval, too, that the hurricane is apt to 
break loose and sweep with devastating force over 



ASPECTS AND RESOURCES OF JAMAICA 207 

this and other islands. In all parts of the wet 
season there are times of heavy rain, accompanied 
by terrific thunder and lightning. From Novem- 
ber to April the climate is genial, and seldom dis- 
turbed by sudden or violent changes. 

The temperature may be said to be equable at all 
times. At Kingston the recorded extremes of the 
year are 6(y^ and 92°, with 74° as the mean. The 
ordinary range in the lowlands in the hot season is 
from about 75° to 85°, and in the cool season some 
ten degrees lower. At Up Park, two hundred and 
twenty-five feet above the sea level, the average of 
the temperature is a fraction above 81° in the hot 
season and 75° in the coolest part of the year. At 
Newcastle, where the English troops are now sta- 
tioned, 3800 feet above the sea, the average is 68° 
in the hot season and 61° in the cool. There are 
still higher levels where the range is from 40° to 
50°. There is a great deal of humidity in the air a 
large part of the time, and vapours accumulate in 
masses over the mountains and sometimes spread a 
decided chill through the uplands. In the coast 
plains there is generally a sea breeze in the daytime 
and a land breeze at night, which contributes to 
equalise the temperature. The nights are rarely 
uncomfortable, and the most oppressive time is from 
seven or eight to ten o'clock in the morning, after 
the land breeze dies down and before the sea breeze 
springs up. 

Much question is made of the healthfulness of 
this and other tropical climates, but it is as much a 
matter of altitude as of latitude, and more a matter 



208 THE WEST INDIES 

of habit than of inevitable conditions. There are 
places in Jamaica which are subject to fever and 
other maladies, but on the whole the island is very- 
salubrious. Diseases due to miasma and malarial 
exhalations are lessened with the improvement of 
drainage and the cultivation of soil, and only about 
one fourth of the island has yet been reduced to 
cultivation. The health of cities depends mainly 
upon sanitary arrangements, which have not been 
so much neglected in English as in Spanish colonies. 
The safety of the individual depends largely upon 
adaptiag his dress, diet, and general regimen to the 
conditions of the tropics, and not trying to pursue 
habits of living and of working there which are fitted 
for a colder and more changeful climate. 




CHAPTER XIX 

HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF JAMAICA 

THE early history of Jamaica has been fairly 
covered by the accounts of colonising, buc- 
caneering, and slave-trading. The town of Sevilla 
del Oro, established by the first Spanish colonists 
under Juan d'Esquivel in 1509, was close by the 
Bay of St. Ann, the Santa Gloria of Columbus, near 
the middle of the north coast, and the spot is still 
marked by the ruins of an ancient church. But the 
permanent Spanish colony was on the southern 
plain of Liguanea, backed by a ridge of hills of the 
same name, and its capital, founded in 1525 by 
Diego Colon, was the Santiago de la Vega which 
the English called Spanish Town, and retained as 
the capital of their colony until 1869. During the 
old wars of Queen Elizabeth's time. Sir A. Shirley 
made an attack upon Jamaica, but did not occupy 
it, and in the time of Charles I., one Colonel Jack- 
son from St. Kitt's plundered and nearly destroyed 
Santiago of the Plain. Later on, the island was 
coolly partitioned among " eight noble families," 
but no respect was paid to their title when, under 

209 



2IO THE WEST INDIES 

CromweU's administration in 1655, Penn and Ven- 
ables finally got possession and an English colony 
was planted. By that time the Spanish had ex- 
terminated the original population and had them- 
selves become reduced to about 1500 persons, with 
an equal number of slaves, and were chiefly engaged 
in cultivating cacao. Most of the Spaniards took 
refuge in Cuba, while the negroes fled to the mount- 
ains and became the nucleus of the maroons. 

The first British colonists were a rude lot, and 
speedily the buccaneering and slave-trading era set 
in, and Port Royal was founded at the end of the 
** Palisades,*' as the sand spit inclosing the bay was 
then called, as the headquarters of the most iniquit- 
ous combination of enterprises ever countenanced by 
a civilised nation. As the traffic became lucrative, 
the place attracted adventurers from every quarter, 
and '* Port Royal itself," says an English historian, 
" united to more than royal opulence the worst vices 
and the lowest depravity that ever disgraced a sea- 
port ; nor could anything else be expected in a city 
whose most honoured denizens were buccaneers, 
most welcome visitors slave-traders. ' ' But a terrible 
retribution seemed to await the sinful city of the 
sand spit. On the 7th of June, 1692, near the hour 
of noon, while the assembly was in session and the 
people were occupied as usual with their schemes of 
money-getting, or squandering their gains in revelry, 
while the waters glittered in the tropic sun and the 
summer air was filled with a placid calm, there came 
a sudden roar, followed by a dreadful rumbling, as 
if the mountains were shaken by a tremendous ex- 



HISTORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 211 

plosion beneath their very foundations; and before 
the startled citizens could gather their wits together 
an earthquake of awful energy rolled through the 
depths under their feet. " The Palisades " rocked 
and heaved, houses tumbled in ruins, the waves 
leaped over the land, carrying vessels with them, 
and the sand spit sank from its ancient level. 

When the tumult was over, a frigate had been 
hurled over houses and landed high and dry, houses 
were submerged beneath the waves, where some of 
them remained visible for a hundred and fifty years, 
and the mangled remains of buildings and water 
craft were mingled over the dead bodies of 3000 of 
the inhabitants. Only the fort and about two hund- 
red houses remained, and the next year the new 
city of Kingston was founded on the flat land within 
the bay and at the foot of the slopes where it now 
stands. Port Royal was further scourged by a 
pestilence that sprang from the decomposing bodies 
of the unburied dead. Shortly after these disasters, 
in 1694, a French fleet landed soldiers near the east- 
ern end of the island, who ravaged the country about 
Port Morant. In 1712, a terrific hurricane swept 
over Kingston and the remnant of Port Royal, al- 
most wiping them from the face of the earth. 

The Spanish made some feeble efforts to recover 
their colony, but the principal disturbance in the 
history of Jamaica for two centuries came from the 
Africans, who had been forced from their own coun- 
try to be slaves in this distant land. The little 
remnant that remained to the Spaniards, when they 
were driven out, established themselves in the 



212 THE WEST INDIES 

mountains and relapsed into barbarism, if they had 
ever been lifted out of it. Some of the many thou- 
sands brought from Africa by the slave ships escaped 
and joined these " maroons." Many of them were 
unreclaimed pagans from the Guinea coast, from 
Koromanti and the Cameroons, and they established 
savage communities in their stronghold and made 
raids for murder and plunder upon the white settlers. 
About 1730, united under a chief called Cudjo, they 
became such a terror to the colonists, who were 
numerous only in their slave property, that two 
regiments were added to the military force in the 
island for the special purpose of subduing them. 
An irregular war was carried on for several years, 
marked by barbarous atrocities on both sides. One 
method of fighting the maroons w^as to track them 
with bloodhounds, and each military barrack had a 
pack of dogs, " provided by the churchwardens of 
the respective parishes." The Mosquito Indians 
were also employed in hunting down the negroes. 

Finally, in 1739, Governor Trelawney brought 
about a pacification, and regular articles were signed. 
Two reservations of land, one of 1000 and one of 
1500 acres, were granted to the maroons and their 
descendants in perpetuity, upon which they could 
maintain complete independence on certain condi- 
tions. They were to refrain from depredations 
upon the whites, and they agreed to surrender run- 
away slaves, receiving a premium of fifteen dollars 
in each case for capturing them, while there was to 
be a severe penalty for harbouring fugitives. This 
naturally produced antagonism between the free 



HISTORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 213 

Africans and the slaves, as was intended. The ma- 
roons had the superstitious and savage instincts and 
pagan practices of their ancestors, and nothing was 
done to rescue them from barbarism, while the 
slaves on the plantations were so inhumanly treated 
that there were repeated attempts at insurrection. 
One of these, near Port Maria on the northern 
coast, in 1760, resulted in an attack upon the fort, 
the killing of the sentinel, and the seizing of arms 
and ammunition, with which the negroes began an 
indiscriminate slaughter of the whites. The colon- 
ists banded together for self-defence, with the aid 
of the military and some help from the maroons, 
who were bound by their treaty to render it in such 
an emergency, and put down the revolted bondmen 
with burnings, hangings, and massacres, and such 
horrors of torture as it is sickening to relate. 

In 1795, there was another serious trouble with 
the maroons, growing out of the whipping of two of 
those of Trelawney Town for stealing a pig. They 
would have put up with any reasonable punishment 
for such an offence, but public whipping by the 
hangman, who was a negro, was an " indignity " to 
the whole maroon community on the Trelawney 
Reservation. They had already been exasperated 
by a law which gave validity to negro testimony 
against them, though it would not be received to 
support any charge against a white man ; and lat- 
terly they had been strictly confined to their limits, 
though formerly allowed to wander at will so long 
as they did not violate the laws to which they had 
agreed to submit. After the incident of the stolen 



214 THE WEST INDIES 

pig and the public whipping there were threats of an 
outbreak, which a hot-headed governor, Lord Bal- 
carres, proceeded to suppress before it came. Merely 
because the maroons demanded redress for their 
*' indignity," he recalled troops that had just been 
sent away, declared martial law, and surrounded the 
rebellious community, thereby arousing among all 
the settlements a dread of a general rising that 
might include the slaves on the plantations, who 
were always in a restless mood at such a time. 

The maroons refused to surrender, and held out in 
their fastnesses until menaced with bloodhounds 
from Cuba. Under the dread of these, when they 
found that a hundred of them had been brought from 
Havana, they yielded to General Walpole, agree- 
ing to a treaty which bound them to ask the king's 
pardon on their knees, to occupy thereafter such a 
reservation in any part of the island as might be 
assigned to them, and to deliver up all slaves who 
had joined them, in return for which their lives would 
be spared and they would not be transported from 
the island. Ten days were allowed for collecting 
their families and making the required submission, 
and because they were unable to get in all their 
number within the stipulated time. Lord Balcarres, 
in spite of the remonstrances of General Waipole, 
had six hundred of them sent to Nova Scotia. 
There they were found to be not half so bad as they 
had been represented ; in fact, they became quite 
harmless, but their forcible expatriation has always 
been counted by the other maroons as a breach of 
faith and a grievance. 



HISTORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 21$ 

It may be said here that maroons have continued 
to exist upon reservations in the mountains of Ja- 
maica, with certain defined treaty rights, and that 
they have continued to have causes of complaint, or 
at least to make complaints and threaten trouble. 
The latest occasion of trouble was an encroachment 
upon land allotted to them by treaty in the Annotto 
Bay district, but not occupied by them until they 
found it had been for years in " adverse possession " 
of a white man. The court decided against their title, 
and was upheld by the governor notwithstanding 
the treaty. 

A regular colonial government was established for 
Jamaica in 1661, with a governor-general appointed 
by the Crown and a legislative assembly, which was 
elected in the island. The suffrage was confined to 
the planters and slave-owners, and for about two 
hundred years they formed an oligarchy which ruled 
virtually without restraint, though nominally under 
the laws of Great Britain. As the slaves had no 
rights and white colonists were few, this system 
worked smoothly. When the Earl of Carlisle was 
governor in 1678, the population then numbering 
about 8000 whites and 10,000 negroes, it was de- 
termined to exact an annual tribute of ;f 8000, or 
about $40,000, and to curtail the privileges of the 
council. In a few years the privileges were restored 
and the revenue, reduced to $30,000, was to be used 
in paying salaries in the colony. In 1672, a mono- 
poly of the slave trade was granted to the Royal 
African Company, and about the same time the 
cultivation of the sugar cane began. In the century 



2l6 THE WEST INDIES 

following, there was a great multiplication and ex- 
tension of plantations devoted almost wholly to this 
profitable crop, and a vast increase in the number of 
slaves by whom the labour in the fields and in the 
mills was almost wholly performed under white 
overseers and slave-drivers. 

The political history of the last century was barren, 
save for the occasional visits of hostile privateers or 
pirates, and the great alarm caused in 1782 when the 
French and Spanish fleets were preparing for an at- 
tack upon the island. The people were saved from 
that serious peril by the great victory of Rodney over 
De Grasse off Dominica, and their gratitude was long 
embodied in a statue of Rodney in Spanish Town, 
which was transferred to Kingston when that became 
the capital, and now stands in the Victoria market- 
place. When, near the end of the last century, the 
agitation for the abolition of the slave trade began, it 
had no more vigorous opponents than the planters 
of Jamaica, the life blood of whose prosperity had 
been slave labour. When slavery itself was abol- 
ished, they deemed themselves and their fair island 
forever ruined. It did have a disastrous effect upon 
the sugar planters. They had been absolutely de- 
pendent upon the negroes for labour, and these had 
been so treated that most of them refused to work 
on the plantations as hired men. They sought 
small holdings of land for themselves, and many of 
them ** squatted ** in the ample spaces that were 
unoccupied, away from the cultivated tracts. No 
political rights had been granted to them ; they re- 
ceived no more social recognition or religious or 



HISTORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 21^ 

educational care than before, and nothing was done 
to conciliate them. On the other hand, there had 
been no white-labour force built up in the island, 
while Cuba continued her competition with slave 
labour. 

To some extent coolies were brought from India 
and China under contract, but this did not coun- 
teract the depression under which the sugar es- 
tates sank into decay. The owners left them in 
the hands of agents, and most of the whites who 
could get away emigrated, while the blacks took to 
multiplying as never before. The absentee planters 
became embarrassed, and their estates were heavily 
encumbered by the liens of merchants who made 
advances to keep them going; and the Encumbered 
Estates Act of 1854 being applied to them, many 
were sold out and divided up. The large sugar 
plantations which numbered eight hundred and fifty- 
nine in 1805, were only three hundred in 1865. The 
freed negroes were more and more becoming small 
land-owners, and were even beginning to raise 
sugar cane on a small scale, uniting to support one 
cheap mill to thirty of their little farms. In later 
years they increased the scale of these operations 
and obtained improved machinery.' 

Trouble between the whites and negroes did not 
cease with emancipation. The very year before the 
passage of the Abolition Act in England there was 
a serious rising of slaves, due to a belief on their 
part that they had already been freed by law but 
were kept in bondage by the masters and would not 
escape withpijt an effort of their own. The revolt 



2l8 THE WEST INDIES 

was attended by the usual outrages and put down 
with the wonted merciless rigour. The slaves burned 
and destroyed a large amount of property but took 
few lives, while 1500 of their number were shot, 
hanged, or otherwise put to death. Memory of 
these events and of the old plantation life did not 
tend to make a docile class of hired labourers of the 
emancipated negroes ; and the few remaining whites 
looked upon them, and were disposed to treat them, 
much as they did in the old slavery days. In 1865, 
there came what has been called an " insurrection " 
of the blacks, which was put down in the old manner. 
In the eastern part of the island there was much 
discontent occasioned by obstacles put in the way of 
holding or acquiring land, by taxation, and by an al- 
leged failure of the local court to do justice to the ne- 
groes. A coloured preacher named Gordon, who was 
a member of the legislative assembly, harangued 
meetings of the discontented, and inflamed the 
prevalent sense of wrong into a violent opposition 
to the constituted authorities. The result was an 
uprising near Port Morant which was really a riot, 
but which created a sudden dread of a general negro 
insurrection in which the whites would be massa- 
cred. Governor Eyre declared martial law, and 
treated the revolt with crushing promptness and 
severity, for which he was severely condemned in 
England. The mob had killed eighteen white men 
and injured thirty-one. In its suppression, four hun- 
dred and thirty-eight negroes, including Gordon, 
were put to death, and six hundred were sentenced 
to the lash or other severe corporal punishment. 



HISTORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 219 

Governor Eyre was recalled, and a commission 
was sent out to investigate, which in a measure 
justified his course. An effort to have him indicted 
for murder in London was defeated, Lord Chief- 
Justice Cockburn making thereon a somewhat fa- 
mous exposition of martial law and the power of 
courts-martial. 

This event was followed in 1866 by a radical 
change in the government of Jamaica. It had had 
a " constitution," or " charter," with large local 
rights, which, however, had been exercised by a 
very small class. Now it was made a Crown colony, 
with a governor and council appointed by the home 
government, and practically exercising all important 
authority. This was modified in 1884. Since then 
there has been a governor and a privy council for 
executive purposes, and a legislative council with 
six ofificial and nine elective members, though the 
governor can increase the number of official or ap- 
pointed members to nine. There is a mayor and 
town council in the city of Kingston, and elsewhere 
local administration is in the hands of parochial 
boards, each of which has two official members and 
from nine to fifteen elective members according to 
the size or importance of the parish. Their powers 
are for local regulation merely. Suffrage is qualified 
by requirements of taxation, income, or property- 
holding which reduce the electorate to not more 
than one in thirty or forty of the population. 

The island is divided into three counties : Surrey 
in the east, Middlesex constituting the central sec- 
tion, and Cornwall in the west. There are fourteen 



220 THE WEST INDIES 

parishes, including Kingston, which has only eight 
square miles and consists mainly of the city of 
Kingston. The others in the county of Surrey are 
St. Andrew, with an area of one hundred and 
seventy-five square miles and 35,000 inhabitants; 
St. Thomas, in the east, two hundred and eighty 
square miles, 34,000 inhabitants ; and Portland, 
three hundred square miles and 30,000 inhabitants. 
The figures for population are taken from the latest 
authoritative source, and are doubtless somewhat 
below the actual number at present. Middlesex 
county is divided into five parishes: St. Catherine, 
area four hundred and sixty-five square miles, popu- 
lation 61,000; St. Mary, area two hundred and 
thirty-six square miles, population 40,000; St. Ann, 
area four hundred and eighty square miles, popula- 
tion 46,000; Clarendon, four hundred and eighty-two 
square miles, population 50,000; and Manchester, 
three hundred square miles and 48,000 population. 
In Cornwall there are five parishes : St. Elizabeth, 
four hundred and eighty-six square miles and 54,- 
000 inhabitants; Westmoreland, three hundred and 
eighteen square miles and 49,000 inhabitants; for 
Hanover the figures are one hundred and thirty and 
30,000; for St. James, two hundred and thirty-four 
and 34,000; and for Trelawney, three hundred and 
twenty-four and 32,000. The parochial division is 
for administrative purposes only. The Church is 
not * ' established, ' ' and a comparatively small minor- 
ity of the people are attached to the " English 
Church. ' ' Since the abolition of slavery the dissent- 
ing sects have done missionary work among the 



til STORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 22! 

blacks, and the Methodists and Baptists far out- 
number the Episcopalians, while there are a good 
many Moravians. Of Roman Catholics there are 
very few. Education has been left mainly to private 
initiative, and is largely carried on by the churches 
and religious teachers. Elementary instruction is 
becoming quite general. 

There is a judiciary system on the English model. 
The governor-general is the chancellor, but there 
are a vice-chancellor and chief-justice, two puisne 
judges of the Supreme Court, seven district courts, 
four stipendiary magistrates, and a police magis- 
trate of the city of Kingston. There is a constab- 
ulary of icxx) members, and the military force 
maintained in the island is ordinarily from 1200 to 
1500 men. The yearly revenue of the colony is 
about ;^8i5,ooo, and the expenditures ;^837,ooo. 
The public debt was ;^2, 175,000 in 1896. 

Kingston has long been the chief seaport and the 
one commercial centre of Jamaica, and since 1869 it 
has been the seat of the colonial government, though 
the governor maintains his residence on high land 
outside of the city. It has about 40,000 inhabit- 
ants, scarcely one third whites, and though well 
supplied with water from the Liguanea Hills and 
fairly well kept, it is a rather dingy and unattractive 
place on close inspection. There are no notable 
buildings architecturally, but the old parish church 
dates from the foundation of the city and has con- 
tained the tomb of Admiral Benbow since 1702. 
There is a creditable court-house, hospital, public 
library and museum, and a fine market and landing 



222 THE WEST INDIES 

place of recent design, by which the Rodney statue 
stands. Out of town there are attractive groves 
and gardens, including a large botanical garden and 
acclimatisation forest, and among the heights of the 
interior are some delightful resorts. The old Port 
Royal site used to have the military station, which 
has been moved up to Newcastle to save the troops 
from fever, and it is still occupied by a fort and 
naval station and the appurtenances thereof. The 
British Government is at the present time renewing 
and strengthening the fortifications and construct- 
ing a dockyard and naval depot within the harbour. 

Spanish Town, the old capital, is a decayed place 
of about 6000 people, in the midst of a monotonous 
plain, which would be arid but for irrigation from 
\he Cobre River. Port Maria is the largest place 
on the north coast, and has about 7000 inhabitants. 
Falmouth, at the mouth of Martha Brae River, has 
3000 people, and Montego Bay, which is the port of 
the maroon district of Trelawney Town, has 5000. 
These northern ports have neither deep nor spacious 
harbours, and are chiefly engaged in the fruit trade, 
though Port Antonio and Port Morant near the 
eastern end of the island are the principal exporting 
points for oranges and bananas. 

Of the 1 5,000 or 16,000 whites in the island, mostly 
English, about five sixths live in and about Kings- 
ton. There are a few in the other seaport towns 
and at the head of plantations or trading places in 
the interior, but the bulk of the population, now 
estimated at nearly 700,000, is made up of negroes 
with little mixed blood, mostly speaking the Eng- 



HISTORY AND CONDITION OF JAMAICA 223 

lish language, and amenable to discipline and in- 
struction, though little accustomed to it until recent 
years. There are perhaps 20,000 Asiatic coolies. 
Industry and trade have languished much of the 
time since the abolition of slavery, on account of 
the difificulties of the labour question, the depression 
of the sugar interest, and the slow progress of ad- 
justment to new conditions, the reasons for which 
are not far to seek. The imports of Jamaica amount 
to about $12,000,000 a year, substantially one half of 
which come from Great Britain and the other half 
from the United States. The exports are valued at 
$10,000,000, of which coffee, now figures as the 
largest item at $1,500,000, sugar next at about $1,- 
000,000, and rum $800,000. The relative decline in 
sugar in recent times is very great. Tobacco is of 
growing importance, and there is a chance for a far 
greater variety in the cultivated productions of the 
island. There is the beginning of a railroad system, 
a main stem from Kingston to Spanish Town with 
branches into the interior north and west, about one 
hundred and twenty miles in all, but scarcely more 
than one fourth of the land has been brought under 
cultivation. Industry is almost wholly confined to 
garnering the products of the soil and sending them 
out of the country. Telegraphic communication 
has been well established throughout the island and 
with the rest of the world. 

There has long been a state of discontent in 
Jamaica on account of the depressed condition of 
trade, which is attributed largely to the subsidising 
of beet-root sugar in Europe and the duty on cane 



^^4 ^^^ W£ST WDTES 

sugar in the United States. Relief has been sought 
^through British legislation and governmental 
changes. The confederation of the British colonies 
in the West Indies has been proposed, political con- 
nection with Canada has been advocated, and even 
annexation to the United States has been agitated. 
It is a question whether the real difficulty is not a 
lack of white colonisation, a mistaken treatment of 
the freed negroes, and a want of enterprise in vary- 
ing the industries of the island since great planta- 
tions of sugar and coffee have become unprofitable. 
Whether there are conditions of climate and race 
which make the difficulty insuperable is not an 
appropriate subject of discussion here, but is an 
interesting question for those whom it most con- 
cerns. 




CHAPTER XX 

THE ISLAND OF HAITI 

THE submarine ridge from which the island of 
Jamaica rises stretches eastward in the ocean 
depths about one hundred and thirty miles and then 
comes to the surface directly south of the eastern 
point of Cuba in the long and mountainous peninsula 
which constitutes the south-western prong of the 
island of Haiti. In like manner the ridge of which 
the whole length of Cuba forms a part continues 
under the Windward Passage for sixty miles and 
comes to light in the shorter north-western prong of 
Haiti. The deep trough between these great ridges 
runs in between the lofty peninsulas to form the 
Gulf of Gonaive, ending in the triangular Bay of 
Port-au-Prince. The southern peninsula, terminat- 
ing in Cape Tiburon, is one hundred and fifty miles 
long, and varies from twenty to forty miles in width ; 
and the northern, which ends with that great natural 
embankment called Mole St. Nicholas, is fifty miles 
long and about forty wide. The gulf between is 
eighty miles across, and is divided near the entrance 
to Port-au-Prince Bay by Gonaive Island, which is 
15 225 



226 . THE WEST INDIES 

thirty-six miles long by eight and a half wide. 
Frorti this there is a rampart of coral reefs to either 
shore, broken by passages which leave channels suf- 
ficient for safe entrance to the bay. 

The whole length of the island of Haiti, from 
Cape Tiburon to Cape Engafio at the extremity of 
its single eastern peninsula, is four hundred and 
seven miles. Its greatest width, where it extends 
down to Cape Beata on the southern coast, is one 
hundred and sixty-five miles; but its form is very 
irregular, narrowing toward the east, and its area is 
about 28,250 square miles. This is nearly two 
thirds of the area of Cuba and more than six times 
that of Jamaica. The entire coast-line is about 
1500 miles, and is indented with many bays and 
inlets, some of them affording good harbours. 
Within the gulf and to the north of Port-au-Prince 
is Gonaive, and there is an inlet at Mole St. Nicho- 
las and another on the north coast at Cape Haitien. 
Farther east is Manzanillo Bay, about the middle 
of the north coast Puerto Plata, and near the eastern 
end of the island the bays of Escocesas and Samana, 
separated by a narrow peninsula, barely attached to 
the mainland. The Bay of Samana, which is about 
thirty miles long by ten miles wide, is partly filled 
with coral reefs, but it has ample spaces of deep 
water and a liberal entrance channel. 

On the southern coast the most important indenta- 
tion is that at Santo Domingo, where the Ozama 
River empties, and the largest is formed by the two 
bays of Ocoa and Neyba, which receive the waters 
of the Yaqui Chico. On the southern shore of the 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 22/ 

long peninsula in the south-west are Jacmel, Baianet, 
St. Louis, and Aux Cayes, and on its northern or 
gulf side are Jeremie and Baraderes. Here and there 
are fringing reefs and islets besides those which ob- 
struct the Bay of Samana and the Gulf of Gonaive 
at the two ends of the island. The Ile-k-Vache, 
which is nine miles long by two wide, lies off the south 
shore of the south-west peninsula near St. Louis 
Bay, with reefs between it and the coast. In the 
extreme south, opposite Cape Beata, is the island of 
Beata, five miles by two, amid a cluster of islets. 
Within the western gulf in the Bay of Baraderes is 
Great Cayemite, five miles by three. The island of 
Tortuga which lies off the north-western peninsula, 
the original haunt of the buccaneers, is twenty-two 
miles long and five miles wide. The island of Na- 
vassa in the Windward Passage has been claimed by 
Jamaica, and is only important for its guano deposits. 
South of the eastern end of Haiti is the considerable 
island of Saona, or Adamanay, fifteen miles by three 
and a half, and to the west of that, Catalina. 

The island of Haiti is the culmination of the great 
mountain system rising out of the depths of the 
ocean in the Greater Antilles. It contains in the 
interior grander and loftier heights than are to be 
found anywhere in the United States east of the 
Rocky Mountains. Running through the length of 
the island from Mole St. Nicholas slightly south 
of east to Cape Engaflo, is an almost continuous 
range, rising near the centre of the island to an 
altitude of 9000 feet or more in the loftiest peaks of 
the Sierra de Cibao, where that old Carib cacique 



228 THE WEST INDIES 

Coanabo had his retreat. The mean altitude of this 
long ridge, the backbone of the island, is over 6000 
feet, and the central peaks, Jicoma, Gallo, and 
Entre Rios, rise to a height of 9CXD0 feet. Isolated 
from the main ridge on its southern side are the 
great Pico de Yaqui, or Rucillo (gray), and Loma 
Tina, which have never been explored and are be- 
lieved to be more than io,cx)0 feet high. For the 
most part this great mountain range is covered with 
dense forests whose depths have hardly been pene- 
trated since the aborigines disappeared. 

There is another mountain range near the northern 
coast, taking its name from that Monte Cristi upon 
which Columbus looked with so much awe that he 
gave it that imposing name. This flat height itself 
springs sheer from the sea to about eight hundred 
feet, and from that level the range rises eastward to 
Sella de Caballo ('* Horse Saddle"), 3900 feet, and 
again after a depression to Campo Diego, 4000 feet, 
and then it falls away into variegated uplands stretch- 
ing to the peninsula of Samana. In that peninsula, 
ahnost severed from the island as it is, this northern 
mountain system terminates in the abrupt eleva- 
tions of Monte Diablo and Pilon de Azucar(" Sugar 
Loaf "), which are about 2000 feet high. 

There is also a southern mountain system, but it 
is wholly west of the Bay of Neyba and the valley 
of the river which flows into it. It is connected with 
the Cibao range by a group of uplands stretching to 
the south-west, which is cut by the great river val- 
ley. The Loma Paciencia and the Loma Barranca 
here rise to the height of 6260 and 7540 feet, respect- 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 229 

ively ; and toward the west lower ridges and broken 
plateaus continue to the great bay, while still farther 
south and near the coast a longer and loftier range 
runs out into the peninsula to Cape Tiburon. From 
a densely wooded region of hills near Cape Beata, it 
begins with the Sierra Baburuco and rises to a height 
of 8900 feet in the Sierra de la Selle, sending a spur 
to the north-west toward Port-au-Prince, which cul- 
minates in Mont Noir, or Prince's Peak, 5000 feet 
high. The western extension is interrupted by a 
rather deep depression, and then springs up in the 
Montagnes de la Hotte, of which the highest peak 
is 7400 feet, and ends abruptly in the Tiburon head- 
land, 2870 feet above the sea. 

Not only is Haiti the most mountainous of the 
Antilles, but it is the only one that has much in 
the way of rivers. It has little of that porous shell 
of limestone which we have encountered in the other 
islands, and in which the copious rainfall gets dis- 
sipated and lost ; but it is endowed with a rugged 
structure of rock, not primitive, indeed, but of the 
secondary formations, — slate, conglomerate, and 
metamorphic masses, sometimes broken by protrud- 
ing syenite. Between the great central mountain 
ridge and the Monte Cristi range on the north, 
stretching all the way from Manzanillo Bay to the 
Bay of Samana, one hundred and forty miles, is 
that broad valley which Columbus called La Vega 
Real. Through its western part flows the great 
Yaqui River, coming down from the heights of 
Cibao and turning westward to the bay at Monte 
Cristi's feet. A slight elevation near the middle of 



230 THE WEST INDIES 

this royal plain turns the watershed eastward into 
the Yuna, which makes its way to the Bay of Sa- 
mana. From the southern slope of Cibao the Neyba, 
or Yaqui Chico, flows to Neyba Bay, and from the 
same central mountain mass the Artibonite, largest 
stream in all the island, makes its way westward 
into the Gulf of Gonaive. These rivers have many 
affluents draining the valleys and plains, but they 
are navigable to no great distance. Worth mention- 
ing also is the Rio Ozama, whose golden sands led 
to the founding of the city of Santo Domingo at its 
mouth. It has a tributary called the Brujuelas, or 
** Witch," which is one of the few streams in the 
island that slink underground; but just here is a 
stretch of limestone full of holes. ' The whole coast 
region east of Santo Domingo City is low and flat. 
In the south-west, north of the Sierra Baburuco 
and the Sierra de la Selle, and between them and the 
opposing ridge on the north, is a level depression 
reaching almost from Neyba Bay to the Bay of Port- 
au-Prince, containing two lakes, about two hundred 
feet above the sea-level. The larger, which the 
aborigines called Xaragua and the Spaniards Enri- 
quillo, or Little Henry, from the native chief whose 
last refuge was an islet in the lake, is called Etang 
Sale by the French negroes of the region, because 
its water is saline. It is even inhabited by marine 
animals, as sharks and porpoises, and was once con- 
nected with the sea. It is very deep, and has an 
area of one hundred and seventy-six square miles, 
but in times of flood it is united with the other lake, 
a smaller body of water, the Laguna de Fundo, or 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 23 1 

the Etang Saumache (" Brackish Pond "). Together 
they have a length of sixty miles and a breadth of 
nine or ten miles. Farther south in the same de- 
pression, but at a higher level, is a fresh-water lake, 
the Icotea de Limon, which receives the torrents of 
the Baburuco Mountains and is thought to send the 
surplus water to Lake Enriquillo through under- 
ground channels. To the east of this long depres- 
sion and near the delta of the Neyba River is Lake 
Rincon. 

In this island was the Bohio, or land of gold, to 
which Columbus was lured on as he came down 
through the Bahamas and left the coast of Cuba be- 
hind him after a vain search for the Grand Khan of 
Cipango; and for a time it proved to be a land 
of gold, much of the precious metal being sent to 
Spain, until the mines failed for lack of labour, and 
adventurous spirits wandered off to Mexico and the 
South American coast. What mineral wealth is still 
concealed in the mountains is practically unknown, 
for there has been no systematic effort to find out 
for several generations. There have been no real 
explorations or surveys, and no application of 
modern methods, and the means of communication 
in the interior are little better than they were in the 
days of the first discoverers. There has been so 
much political disturbance and so little progress for 
two centuries that Haiti is still an undeveloped 
land. 

We know that there is not only gold, but silver, 
copper, iron, platinum, mercury, and other valuable 
minerals and useful and precious stones; but to 



232 THE WEST INDIES 

what extent enterprise and labour might turn these 
into available wealth we cannot tell. We know also 
that in the dense and almost interminable forests 
there are vast supplies of those same valuable woods 
that are to be found on the other large islands. The 
soil is everywhere fertile, even on the highest slopes 
and levels that have been laid bare, but as yet the 
great stretches of rich plain are cultivated only in 
patches. The natural productions of the vegetable 
world are the same tropical plants in variety and 
profusion that we have found in Cuba and Jamaica ; 
and the exotic sugar-cane and coffee grow with the 
same luxuriance, and have long afforded the staple 
crops. Cotton and tobacco are indigenous, but 
neglected. The natural resources of the island, if 
fairly developed, would sustain ten times the present 
population in comfort. 

There is nothing exceptional or peculiar in the 
animal life of Haiti. It has the same lack of in- 
digenous quadrupeds and mammals as the other An- 
tilles, but has rather more of the domestic animals 
gone wild, including dogs and cats as well as cattle 
and hogs. The undisturbed wilderness and great 
stretches of unoccupied land give them a vast range 
of freedom. There is no great variety or abund- 
ance of birds, but many snakes and reptiles, mostly 
harmless, and insects in plenty, some of which have 
unpleasant ways. The island stands open to the 
north-east trade-winds, and on account of the great 
elevations on its surface, the contrasts in its climate 
are somewhat stronger than in the other islands. 
The general rainfall is heavy, especially on the north- 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 233 

ern slopes, and the wet season lasts from May till 
October; but there are sheltered plateaus where 
very little rain comes and vegetation is nourished by 
heavy dews. There is much heat and moisture in 
some of the lowlands near the coast, and at Port- 
au-Prince the temperature ranges from 65° to 100° 
Fahrenheit. There is no more delightful or salu- 
brious climate in the world than is to be found in 
much of the upland country, and the plains that 
border the river valleys are always healthful. If the 
cities and towns are not so in the wet and hot sea- 
son, it is largely due to lack of attention to sanitary 
and hygienic requirements. 

Haiti has been several times shaken in spots by 
violent earthquakes. About once in a century some 
promising town has been quite destroyed. This 
happened to Concepcion de la Vega in the great east- 
ern plain in I564,and to Port-au-Prince on the west- 
ern bay in 1 75 1. In 1842, Port-au-Prince was shaken 
into ruins by convulsions of the earth. But no ex- 
ternal indications of volcanic action in recent ages 
have been found, and the hurricane does not strike 
this island with the violence which it sometimes ex- 
hibits toward the lower Caribbees and Jamaica and 
Cuba. It does not lie across the favourite path of 
that raging monster of the air. 

Espafiola, or " Little Spain," was the mother of 
the Spanish colonies in the West Indies. After the 
excitement of the. discovery days and the eager 
quest for gold, when Diego Colon at Santo Do- 
mingo assumed the airs of a royal ruler, expeditions 
were sent to Jamaica under Esquivel and to Cuba 



234 ^^^ IVEST INDIES 

under Velasquez, while De Leon went over to 
Puerto Rico to begin its colonial career; and the 
Cuban expedition was the starting-point of Cortez 
and the conquest of Spanish possessions on the 
mainland. The mother colony itself settled down to 
quiet with no history separable from that of the dis- 
covery, the colonising, and the doings of the traders 
and buccaneers who came to infest these waters. 
Ovando explored along the southern coast and 
founded a town called Salva Tierra near the present 
Aux Cayes, but the Spanish settlements were mostly 
within easy reach of Santo Domingo or in the great 
plain over the mountains, which sloped to the sea at 
Samana and at Monte Cristi. After the wretched 
natives had died out and negro bondmen had been 
brought in, plantation life began its infancy and its 
slow growth. 

In 1585, Drake captured the city of Santo Do- 
mingo, but only to exact ransom and sail away ; and 
the languishing colony was occasionally harried on 
its coasts by marauding enemies of Spain or of all 
peaceable mankind. After the French refugees from 
St. Christopher joined the first '' boucaniers" in pos- 
session of Tortuga, the Spanish drove them out 
more than once, with the result that they finally set- 
tled upon the western end of the larger island, at 
Petit Goave on the north side of the southern pen- 
insula within the gulf. They held on there and 
were joined by other Frenchmen. They established 
plantations and bought negro slaves, trading chiefly 
with the buccaneers. Unlike the other colonists, 
they obtained African women as well as men, and 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 235 

their slaves increased in number spontaneously, 
instead of dying out on their hands, and had a 
superior physical vigour. The colonists built a fort 
at the head of the bay which they called Port-au- 
Prince, but just when and in honour of what prince 
seems to be unknown. But these Frenchmen raised 
sugar and coffee and cotton and established a 
flourishing trade, and when the peace treaty of 
Ryswick was signed in 1697, Spain was fain to con. 
cede to France the colony which had grown up on 
the western end of " Little Spain." The French 
called their colony St. Domingue, while the Spanish 
retained the name of Espanola, or Hispaniola; and 
it was not until the former declared its independence 
that it assumed the old native appellation of Haiti 
for itself. After the Spanish colony had passed 
through its transformation to a like state of inde- 
pendence, it took the name of Santo Domingo, and 
each of the two republics acquired the habit of call- 
ing the whole island by its own name. Unfortun- 
ately, the rest of the world has accepted both names 
for the island and used them indiscriminately, in- 
stead of leaving them to designate the two nations, 
and retaining the original Spanish title in its Latin- 
ised form for the whole land. 

It was a little more than one third of the area of 
the island that was ceded to France, and the bound- 
ary was not definitely fixed until 1777, and has been 
in dispute most of the time since. The two colonies 
grew side by side, not always peaceably when their 
mother countries were quarrelling, but without any 
serious contests between themselves. But the 



236 THE WEST INDIES 

French colony was more rapid and vigorous in its 
growth. When the Revolution of 1789 came in 
France, it had fully twice the population of Espa- 
fiola, and far more than twice its wealth and foreign 
trade. Of its population of 500,000, 38,360 were 
whites of European origin, 28,370 were free persons 
of colour, mostly mulattoes with white fathers, and 
the rest were negro slaves. There were many large 
plantations, over 11,000, it has been said, and a 
flourishing trade, mostly centred at Port-au-Prince. 
** Colonial produce," which meant chiefly sugar, 
coffee, and cotton, was sent to Europe and ex- 
changed for manufactured articles, and many of the 
mulattoes became property-owners, and some of 
them received a good education in France. Mean- 
time the Spaniards at the other end of the island 
were going on in a more quiet way and increasing 
much more slowly. Their plantations were fewer 
and smaller, and they raised comparatively little for 
export; and what substance they had was mostly 
drawn to Spain. 

In the most palmy days of the French colony of 
St. Domingue came the great convulsion in France, 
for which generations of arbitrary rule and oppres- 
sion of the mass of the people had prepared the way. 
The close relations which the colonists had kept up 
with the mother country led them to feel the thrill 
and to share the alarm. The friends of liberty in 
the motherland bethought them of the slaves of the 
distant colony and the cruel treatment they were 
said to have been subjected to by the lordly plant- 
ers; and the society of " Les Amis des Noirs " was 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 237 

founded in Paris. The whites in the island, with 
the exception of some of the rich planters — the 
" petits blancs," — were quite ready for their share 
of liberty, fraternity, and equality, but did not wish 
to admit the coloured brother to it. When the an- 
cient regime was overturned, the white colonists were 
admitted to all the privileges of the new French citi- 
zenship, but the free people of colour were excluded. 
They agitated vigorously for equal rights, and when 
these were denied there was an insurrection led by 
Vincent Oge, one of the mulattoes who had been 
educated in France and had imbibed there the new- 
born spirit of liberty. The revolt was put down, 
and Oge, who had taken refuge in Espafiola, was 
given up by the Spaniards and broken on the wheel, 
while twenty-one of his followers were hanged. 

This by no means allayed the excitement, and in 
response to the efforts of ' ' Les Amis des Noirs ' ' the 
French Assembly decreed that all persons of colour 
" born of free parents " were entitled to all the 
privileges of citizens of France. On protest of the 
planters the government delayed putting this de- 
cree into effect, and that renewed the conflict with 
increased fury, and even the slaves were aroused to 
insurrection. This so alarmed the whites that they 
were ready to concede the demand of the mulattoes, 
when the Assembly at Paris revoked the decree. 
This threw the free coloured people and the blacks 
together in a common resistance to the authorities. 
Commissioners were sent from France to settle the 
trouble, but found it too much for them, and the 
Spaniards took the opportunity to invade the colony 



238 THE WEST INDIES 

from the east, while the English attacked it from 
the water, capturing Port-au-Prince and laying siege 
to Port k la Paix. In this dilemma the French com- 
missioner Sonthonax, then in the colony, took it 
upon himself to proclaim universal freedom in 
August, 1793, his action being ratified and confirmed 
the next year by the national convention in France. 

This brought the whole black and coloured force to 
the side of the new-born republican power in France, 
under the command of Frangois Dominique Tous- 
saint, ever since known as Toussaint L'Ouverture. 
The name is said by some to have been assumed on 
account of the opening of a new era for his race, and 
by others to have been conferred by a French officer 
because the way opened wherever he appeared. He 
was a full-blooded negro, a slave and the son of 
slaves, though descended from an African prince; 
but with a slight education gained in his master's 
family he had in these stirring times developed a 
genius for military command and for rule over the 
people of his blood. The French Government 
made him commander-in-chief of the native forces, 
the Spanish and English were driven out, and when 
by the treaty of Basle in 1795 Espanola was given 
up to France, Toussaint L'Ouverture became virtual 
dictator of the whole island. 

The black ruler, the revolted slave of a few years 
before, developed administrative ability as remark- 
able as the mihtary capacity that he had shown. 
He established himself in the old palace at Santo 
Domingo and assumed imposing airs of state with a 
body-guard of 1500 men in brilliant uniform, and 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 239 

a council of nine members, of whom all but one 
were white planters of substance and capacity. A 
constitution was drawn up, free trade was declared, 
and Toussaint L'Ouverture was made president for 
life. All this was nominally in subjection to the 
authority of the French Republic, but there was a 
new turn of affairs in France. A still greater genius 
for war and for the rule of men had come into power 
there as First Consul, and he would not brook the 
pretensions of the black upstart of Haiti, who 
seemed to aim at an independent empire of his own. 
Toussaint in fact declared the independence of the 
island, and proclaimed himself the supreme chief in 
July, 1801. 

Napoleon sent out an expedition with sixty-six 
ships of war and an army of 30,000 men under Gen- 
eral Leclerc to bring the revolted colony to its alle- 
giance. Leclerc landed at Samana, and, finding an 
opposition that he could not overcome by force, 
tried to secure the submission of L'Ouverture by 
diplomatic proceedings, in which the two sons of the 
black chieftain, who had been in France for their 
education and had been brought over with the ex- 
pedition, were used as emissaries. They brought a 
letter from the First Consul, offering great honours 
to the negro ruler if he would return to his allegiance, 
but he chose to be faithful to his own people. He 
formally abolished slavery and established a system 
of free labour under which those who worked the 
plantations were to have one third of the crop. 

There was a long and bloody struggle, and the pur- 
pose of the French general to restore slavery as well 



240 THE WEST INDIES 

as the sovereignty of France was finally avowed. 
This made the blacks fight with desperation for the 
preservation of their freedom. The conflict was 
carried on mainly in the old French colony at the 
western end of the island. Yellow fever came to 
the aid of the struggling negroes and threatened the 
French army with destruction. Then General Le- 
clerc resorted again to tricks of diplomacy. Having 
won over the two black generals Dessalines and 
Christophe to his scheme by plausible representa- 
tions, he finally induced Toussaint himself to con- 
sent, upon solemnly repeated assurances of good 
faith, to a plan of holding a representative assembly 
of the people of the island, which should provide 
for their future liberty and welfare. Then by base 
pretences Toussaint L'Ouverture was enticed to a 
conference in Gonaive, seized and carried to France, 
where he died of neglect and starvation in the dun- 
geons of the Chateau Joux. 

General Leclerc had remained behind and assumed 
the title of governor-general, but the insurrection 
broke out with new violence under Dessalines, 
Christophe, and other lieutenants of Toussaint 
L'Ouverture. On the death of Leclerc, General 
Rochambeau succeeded to the command and con- 
tinued a ruthless policy. Bloodhounds were brought 
from Cuba to reinforce the French army and hunt 
the blacks from their hiding-places, while a raging 
epidemic of yellow fever rendered the army itself 
well-nigh helpless. This horrible warfare was kept 
up with appalling barbarity and suffering on both 
sides, but the debilitated French soldiers were finally 



THE ISLAND OF HAITI 24 1 

penned up at Cape Francois (now Cape Haitien), 
and forced to eat their Cuban bloodhounds or die of 
starvation and disease. They finally surrendered, 
and France lost the greatest of her West Indian 
colonies forever. The Haitians formally declared 
their independence anew on the 1st of January, 
1804, and General Dessalines was made governor for 
life with the right to name his successor. He soon 
declared himself emperor, with the title of Jacques 
I., and proceeded to order every French person on 
the island to be put to death, turning out to be such 
a murderous brute that in 1806 he was assassinated 
by his own soldiers. 

Rival negro chiefs then divided the heritage. 
Christophe established himself in the north-west as 
" chief magistrate for life," with his capital at Cape 
Haitien, but in 181 1 he proclaimed himself king 
in that domain with the title of Henri I., and built 
a strong castle and a pleasure palace some distance 
from the coast. In the meantime, Spain, with 
the help of the English, had recovered nominal 
control of her old colony in the east. In the 
south-western peninsula, a mulatto named Petion 
held sway with headquarters at Port-au-Prince. He 
was a comparatively wise and benign ruler, and died 
in 1 81 8 much regretted by his people. In 1820, the 
black king, Christophe, shot himself, and General 
Boyer became president of the Republic of Haiti, 
which now included both sections of the western 
end of the island. Its independence was acknow- 
ledged by France in 1825, upon an agreement for 
the payment of 125,000,000 francs to indemnify 
16 



242 



THE WEST INDIES 



French citizens for their losses of property. This 
was afterwards reduced to 90,ooo,CXX) francs, and 
long rested as a debt upon the republic. 

In 182 1, the Colombian flag of Bolivar was raised 
in Santo Domingo and its independence from Spain 
was declared ; but the next year, to save itself from 
being forced back under the Spanish sovereignty, it 
yielded to General Boyer's attack and was merged 
in the Haitian Republic. From that time until 1844 
the whole island continued under one government 
as the Republic of Haiti, but in the latter year the 
separate autonomy of Santo Domingo was estab- 
lished under the title of the Dominican Republic. 




CHAPTER XXI 

THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 

THE boundary between the two republics of 
Haiti and Santo Domingo begins at the mouth 
of the Anses-ci-Pitre on the south and terminates at 
the mouth of the Riviere du Massacre on the north, 
but it is irregular in its course and has been much 
disputed. Haiti has an area generally stated as 
10,204 square miles, including the islands of Tor- 
tuga, Gonaive, and Ile-a-Vache. It is divided on 
the French system into departments, arrondisse- 
ments, and communes. The latest estimate of the 
population is 1,210,000; but according to the last 
official statement, the six departments of the repub- 
lic and the number of inhabitants were as follows: 
Nord, 250,000; Nord Quest, 70,000; Artibonite, 
125,000; Quest, 350,000; and Sud, 200,000. 

The history of the Haitian Republic has been one 
of almost constant revolution or insurrection, and 
the constitution has been several times modified. 
General Boyer, who became president on the death 
of Christophe, or Henri I., ** King of the North," 
in 1820, and who succeeeded not only in uniting the 

243 



244 ^-^^ WEST INDIES 

sections of the west, but in bringing the Spanish 
end of the island under his sway, exercised power 
in an arbitrary fashion until a growing opposition 
broke into revolution and drove him out in 1842. 
Two years later the old Spanish colony revolted 
under the leadership of Juan Pablo Duarte, and set 
up for itself as an independent republic. General 
Faustin Soulouque, the new ruler of Haiti, tried to 
bring it into subjection again and failed. He was a 
violent and superstitious African, with strong pagan 
instincts but much personal power, and in 1849 ^^ 
declared himself emperor of Haiti with the title of 
Faustin L, had the constitution changed to fit the 
case, created orders of nobility, with black dukes, 
counts, and barons, and in 1850 was crowned with 
great pomp and circumstance. He became so ex- 
travagant, despotic, and corrupt that in 1858 his 
empire was overthrown and the republic was restored 
under General Fabre Geffrard. Soulouque tried to 
recover his ground, but soon had to save his head by 
taking refuge in Jamaica. 

There were plots against Geffrard and an attempt 
upon his life which resulted in the killing of his 
daughter. There was a successful revolution in 1867, 
which drove him to Jamaica, and a triumvirate was 
formed under Generals Nissage-Saget, Chevalier, 
and Salnave. A new constitution was adopted 
and Sylvestre Salnave was made president, but 
this led to division and tumult, from which Nis- 
sage-Saget emerged as president. General Salo- 
mon, who became president in 1879, succeeded in 
holding power for eight years, putting down one 



THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 245 

serious insurrection in 1883, and in getting himself 
elected again in 1887; but the ambitious warriors 
and statesmen of the land thought he had enjoyed 
the profits of power long enough, and there was a 
revolution. One of the rebel leaders, General Le- 
gitime, assumed the part of dictator, and was chosen 
provisional president, but he had several rivals for 
the glory of succeeding the banished Salomon, 
among them Generals Thelemaque, Hippolyte, and 
Manigat, who had helped to bring about the revo- 
lution. Thelemaque was killed, and Manigat and 
Legitime joined the exiles in Jamaica to plot trouble 
for the successful aspirant for presidential honours. 
Louis Modestin Florvil Hippolyte became the chief 
magistrate under an amended constitution in 1889. 
He was not a gentle or mild-mannered person, but 
had a rude and vigorous capacity for government. 
He was constantly on the watch for conspirators, 
and prompt in crushing any resistance to his power. 
Legitime and Manigat succeeded in exciting in- 
surrection a number of times, but it was speedily 
suppressed, and certain rebel leaders falling into the 
hands of Hippolyte in 1891, he summarily put them 
to death. He gained a reputation for bloodthirsti- 
ness by the prompt and merciless manner in which 
he dealt with those whom he regarded as traitors. 
In 1896, he died of apoplexy, and his death was 
kept secret until his successor had been chosen in 
the person of his secretary of war. General Tiresias 
Augustin Simon Sam. Haiti has an army of less 
than 7000 men, but every person conspicuous in 
politics or public life seems to be a " general." 



246 THE WEST INDIES 

Under the constitution as it is at the time of this 
writing, the president is elected for a term of seven 
years by the National Assembly in joint session of 
the two houses. The Assembly consists of a Senate 
of thirty-nine members and a House of Deputies of 
ninety-five. The deputies are elected for a term 
of three years by popular vote to represent the com- 
munes, and the senators are elected for a term of six 
years by the House of Deputies from a list of candi- 
dates furnished by the president and a college of 
electors, one third going out every two years. 

There is a judicial system with a Court of Cassa- 
tion, which is the tribunal of appeal, a superior court 
at the capital of each department, and subsidiary 
and primary courts in the arrondissements and com- 
munes; and the framework of the law is the Code 
civil. According to law, education is gratuitous 
and compulsory, but the law is not enforced, and 
ignorance is general. A degenerate French patois 
is in common use, and few know any other language, 
or have any doubt that the Haitians are as intelli- 
gent and highly educated as any people on the face 
of the earth. Most of them have a patriotic pride 
in their government, which is always arbitrary, gen- 
erally inefficient, and notoriously corrupt. 

Nine tenths of the million and more of free and 
independent citizens are of pure African blood, and 
most of the rest have an intermixture of it. The 
French whites who were not slaughtered were ex- 
pelled after the revolution, and no alien is allowed 
to own land in the republic. The religion of the 
old French colony was Roman Catholic, but the 



THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 247 

slaves were not very thoroughly inoculated with it, 
and while they nominally retained it in their state of 
freedom, it became deplorably mingled with an in- 
herited African paganism. Voudooism and the 
mystic rites of Obeah prevail more or less openly, 
with all the horrid practices of serpent worship, 
sometimes including the sacrifice of infants — ** the 
goat without horns " — and the eating of human 
flesh. Reports of heathen practices in secret places 
are doubtless exaggerated, but there are authentic 
accounts of the hideous orgies which attend the Vou- 
doo, or " Vaudoux," worship; and serious but un- 
availing attempts have been made to suppress the 
cannibalism which is still a feature of it. 

There is certainly a general lack of enlightenment 
and progress in the Black RepubUc. Public improve- 
ments are almost wholly neglected ; the roads are bad, 
and the bridges so dilapidated as to be generally 
avoided. They are hardly ever renewed or repaired. 
The villages are, as a rule, slovenly collections of shan- 
ties, and most rural habitations are squalid and un- 
kempt. The old plantation buildings have gone to 
decay, and industrial enterprise has fled. Agricultural 
and commercial methods are crude and primitive, or 
negligently conducted, and business honour is as 
scarce a commodity as social and domestic virtue. 
The currency of the nation is disordered and its 
finances are ignorantly conducted; and of the $9,- 
000,000 or so of government expenditures, a large pro- 
portion is misapplied or fraudulently appropriated, 
while corruption in the collection of revenues is al- 
most universal. Such is the unqualified testimony 



248 THE WEST INDIES 

of competent observers who have spent much time 
in Haiti. 

The capital of the republic, which is also the 
principal port and the chief commercial city, is Port- 
au-Prince at the head of the bay which penetrates 
so deeply into the western end of the island. The 
French built a fortification here at an early date, 
but the city was not founded until 1749, when it was 
called L'Hopital. The old colonial capital was 
Leogane, which has an outlet on the bay now called 
^a Ira. Port-au-Prince has 30,000 to 35,000 in- 
habitants, but though it is the centre of nearly all 
the foreign trade, it is a shabby, ill-kept, foul-smell- 
ing, and most unwholesome place. It was shaken 
to pieces by an earthquake in 1842, and has been 
several times nearly burned up, but it retains its 
flimsy construction, speedily becomes dingy after 
being rebuilt, and reeks with filth at most times. 
Back from the city the plain of Cul-de-Sac once 
contained flourishing plantations and is by nature 
one of the most attractive and productive stretches 
of land in the whole country. The port of St. 
Marc to the north of the capital is the outlet for the 
coffee gardens and mahogany groves of the lower 
valley of the Artibonite. Near by "is Gonaive, 
where the independence of Haiti was declared, and 
whence Toussaint L'Ouverture was carried to his 
dismal fate. 

There is a good harbour at Mole St. Nicholas, 
the end of the north-western peninsula, where 
Columbus first touched this great island and where 
the French established their real stronghold before 



THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 249 

their possession was conceded by the Spaniards. 
Here also the Acadians from Nova Scotia were in 
temporary exile before going to Louisiana. On 
the north coast opposite Tortuga is Port-k-la-Paix, 
the ** Valparaiso " of Columbus. Cape Haitien, 
farther east, has a flourishing coffee trade, and a 
few miles south of it is the chateau '* Sans Souci," 
which Christophe established as his royal residence 
when he was king. The most eastern port is Li- 
berte, which has a deep harbour and is largely the 
shipping point for dyewoods. Along the southern 
peninsula on the bay side are a number of small 
trading places. Grand Goave, Petit Goave, Barade- 
res, Jeremie. It is a country of coffee and cacao 
culture. At Jeremie were the ancestral estates of 
the family of Alexandre Dumas. On the outer side 
of the peninsula beyond Cape Tiburon are several 
havens — Coteaux, Port Salut (which is not safe), 
Aux Cayes, Aquin, and St. Louis. Aux Cayes is 
the place from which Cromwell's fleet took its de- 
parture for Jamaica, and at which Bolivar's expedi- 
tion for the liberation of the Spanish colonies in 
South America was fitted out in 1816. There is so 
much coast-line to Haiti that there are few towns 
of consequence in the interior. 

Though the industrial condition is so backward and 
trade is less flourishing than in former times, there are 
still exports of cotton, coffee, cacao, mahogany, dye- 
woods, tortoise shell, and a few other products ; and 
manufactured wares and fabrics are imported from 
Europe and some provisions and cotton goods from 
the United States. The foreign trade amounts to 



250 



THE WEST INDIES 



about $i5,cxx),ooo a year, of which $9,500,000 con- 
sists of exports, but the capacity of the country for 
profitable production is scarcely touched by the 
thriftless population. Political conditions and a 
narrow and exclusive policy, dictated by jealousy 
and fear, keep out foreign capital and enterprise as 
well as the civilising influences that might induce 
progress and elevation, though probably at the ex- 
pense of the full freedom of the blacks in the experi- 
ment of self-government, for which they were so 
ill-prepared. 




CHAPTER XXII 

THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 

THE full form of the Spanish title " Santo " was 
reserved to Dominicus and two or three other 
special worthies in the calendar of saints, and the 
English habit of abridging it to " San " in the case 
of this name is highly improper, though ignorant 
usage has forced its acceptance by some " authori- 
ties." The RepubUc of Santo Domingo has an 
area of 18,045 square miles, which is nearly double 
that of Haiti, while its population numbers only 
610,000, or about one half that of the negro nation. 
There is also a wide difference in the character of 
the people of the two republics. Those of Santo 
Domingo are to a considerable degree Spanish in 
their origin and traditions, and retain the Spanish 
language without much degeneration. The Span- 
iards were not driven out when the bond of sover- 
eignty was broken, and have never been excluded. 
About one tenth of the present inhabitants are of 
pure Castilian blood, and the rest exhibit every de- 
gree of mixture of white and " coloured," with 
comparatively little of the unadulterated negro. 
The Spanish slavery system was not so harsh as 

351 



252 THE WEST INDIES 

that of the more flourishing French colony, where 
large plantations enriched their owners; and the 
Catholic Church did more to soften and modify the 
African character in the eastern part of the island. 
The consequence is the mixture of races and the 
more tractable character of the people, who do not 
cling to pagan superstitions and practices or retain 
savage qualities to the same extent as those of 
Haiti. 

The Dominican Republic is now divided into ten 
provinces and districts, as follows, the figures in- 
dicating the population according to the latest 
official statements: Beginning at the western limit 
on the south coast, Azua de Compostela, 50,000, 
Santo Domingo, 134,000, Santa Cruz del Seybo, 
56,000; in the interior, Concepcion de la Vega, 
132,000, Santiago de los Caballeros, 40,000, Bara- 
hona, 20,000, San Pedro, 40,000; in the north-east, 
Samana, 180,000; and on the north coast, Puerto 
Plata, 40,000, and Monte Cristi, 40,000. The capi- 
tal town in each province and district has the same 
name as the political division itself, except that the 
port of Samana is sometimes called by the old name 
of Santa Barbara, but the capital is not in every case 
the largest town. 

Of the five provinces into which the republic was 
originally divided, that of Azua de Compostela in- 
cludes a fine grazing region, the upper valley of the 
Artibonite, and a district of mineral springs near the 
borders of Haiti. At San Juan de Maguana some 
curious relics of the aboriginal cult have been found, 
including a circle of stones roughly representing the 



THE DOMINICA N REP UBLIC 253 

emblem of eternity, in the form of a serpent with 
its tail in its mouth. Azua on Ocoa Bay is the only 
important port on the southern coast west of Santo 
Domingo. The capital city itself is the oldest in 
the western world, though not the original town of 
Bartolome Colon, which was on the other bank of the 
Ozama River. There are still some vestiges of ruins 
on the east bank which recall the memory of Colum- 
bus, including those of the chapel where Bobadilla 
proclaimed the deposition of the great Admiral and 
his own assumption of command ; and even traces 
of the tower by the river's mouth in which he was 
imprisoned before being sent home in chains. The 
first settlement was destroyed by a hurricane in 
1502, and the other bank of the river was chosen as 
a more favourable site. The great tower of the 
Homenage, built in 1509, still frowns dismally at 
the entrance to the modern city, and farther up are 
the ruins of the palace built by Diego Colon, and 
known yet as the Casa Colon. 

Santo Domingo is a strange mixture of the endur- 
ing relics of former splendour and the squalid domi- 
ciles of the living generation. It is partly inclosed 
in the old Spanish walls over which appear the quaint 
domes and belfries of churches and convents of the 
sixteenth century. On the central plaza are the 
government buildings and a cathedral more than 
three hundred and fifty years old, with a statue of 
Columbus in front of it; but crumbling ruins of 
still earlier structures maybe explored. Remains 
of the convent church of San Nicolas, built in 1509, 
are visible, and in that of San Francisco the dust of 



5 54 ^^^ IVEST INDIES 

Bartolome Colon and of the intrepid soldier Alonso 
de Ojeda are said to repose. To the convent church 
of Santo Domingo still cling fragments of the walls 
of the first university founded in the New World, 
where the gentle Las Casas began his ministrations 
before going to Cuba. 

The cathedral was many years in building and was 
finally completed in 1540. Already the remains of 
Diego Colon had been placed in a vault beneath one 
of its chapels, and on petition of survivors of the 
family those of the discoverer himself were brought 
thither and deposited near them. Are they still 
there ? When the colony was ceded to France in 
1795, Spain was permitted to remove these precious 
relics to Havana, which she was supposed to have 
done with great solemnity and much ceremony; but 
it is now pretty well demonstrated that the wrong 
casket was removed and that the bones of Christo- 
pher Columbus still repose in the city of his brother 
and his son, which succeeded the Navidad and 
Isabella of his own founding. 

Extending about the city of Santo Domingo is a 
district of small towns and plantations connected with 
it in recent times by railroad. The Seybo province 
to the east is mostly a region of forests and broad 
savannas. The eastern slope of the great and fertile 
plain that so captivated the eye of Columbus contains 
some quietly flourishing towns and many sugar and 
coffee plantations, but near the mouth of the Yuna 
River there is a long marsh called the grait estero. 
The old port of Las Flechas near the end of the island 
has been abandoned for that of Samana, within the 



THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC ^55 

sheltered bay, which is connected by railroad with 
La Vega and Santiago. It is intended to extend 
the line through the Yaqui valley to Monte Cristi. 
The pearl fisheries on the south side of Samana Bay, 
near San Lorenzo, where there are some fine stalac- 
tite caves, have been abandoned. There is stock- 
raising as well as the cultivation of sugar, coffee, 
and tobacco in the long stretches of the Vega Real, 
and some mining still in the neighbourhood of 
Monte Cristi. Puerto Plata, the only seaport of 
consequence on the north coast, took the place of the 
ill-fated Isabella of Columbus. Its harbour is not 
deep but is locally serviceable, and there has been 
a project of a railroad across the island from Santo 
Domingo to Puerto Plata, taking in Santiago and 
intersecting the line from Samana. 

The French took possession of the old Spanish 
colony of Espafiola after the treaty of Basle in 1795, 
and maintained a garrison there through the troubles 
of those and subsequent times; but in 1809 it was 
driven out by the English who restored the sover- 
eignty of Spain. This continued until 1821, when 
Santo Domingo gained her independence only to be 
coerced by General Boyer into the union with Haiti 
in 1822. This lasted until 1844, when the new Do- 
minican Republic was established under a separate 
constitution, and General Pedro Santana was chosen 
as the first president for a term of four years. His 
successor, Jimenez, conspired with Soulouque to 
bring back the old state of things, and was resisted 
and defeated by Santana, who regained power as a 
temporary dictator, though Buenaventura Baez was 



256 THE WEST INDIES 

elected president in 1849. ^^ 1853, there was a fierce 
contest in which Santana won the presidency and 
Baez was banished, but in 1856 the latter was recalled 
and put in power, to give way to Santana again in 
1858. 

Getting discouraged by the difficulty of main- 
taining a stable government, the president allowed 
Spain to resume control in 1861. But this only made 
things worse, and in 1865 the Spanish authorities 
were expelled, independence was again declared, the 
old constitution was adopted anew, and Baez was 
once more made the chief magistrate. But the very 
next year he was expelled and a triumvirate was 
established, to be succeeded in 1868 by Jose Maria 
Cabral as president, who offered to lease the Bay of 
Samana to the United States. Cabral was speedily 
displaced by the persistent Baez, and a commission 
was sent to Washington in 1871 to promote the 
annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States. 
Its mission was a failure, and in 1873 Samana was 
ceded to an American company which forfeited its 
rights by failure to pay the stipulated rental the first 
year. In 1873, Ignacio Gonzales became president, 
and there was a period of comparative quiet but 
little progress. 

After a renewal of disturbances in 1886, General 
Ulisses Heureaux was elected president, and was re- 
elected for three successive terms of four years. His 
administration was disturbed by insurrections and 
revolutionary movements, which became serious in 
1893 and in 1896, but he put them down with an 
energetic hand and maintained his power. 



THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 2$^ 

The constitution, which was -adopted in 1844 and 
reaffirmed in 1865, was revised in 1888, and again 
modified in 1896. The legislative body is a single 
chamber of twenty-four members, two representing 
each province and district, and two the cities of 
Santo Domingo and Santiago. They are elected 
by popular suffrage for a term of four years, as is 
the president, or chief executive. The judiciary con- 
sists of a Supreme Court at Santo Domingo, and 
lower courts in the districts, while every town and 
parish has its alcalde, or local magistrate. There are 
provincial assemblies with limited jurisdiction, and 
town councils, or ayuntamientos, after the manner 
of Spanish municipal administration. 

The Roman Catholic Church has continued dom- 
inant, and the archbishop of Santo Domingo still 
claims the old title of " Primate of the Indies," but 
a policy of toleration has been pursued, and there 
are many Protestants in the republic, mainly Metho- 
dists and Baptists. Though there is a university, 
two colleges, and many schools, education is back- 
ward. 

While Santo Domingo does not appear to prosper 
or to advance very perceptibly, it has maintained a 
steadily progressive policy under President Heu- 
reaux. There has been no such jealousy of foreign 
influence as prevails in Haiti, and English and 
American capital has been encouraged. Railroads 
have been begun and are to be extended, and most 
of the important towns are connected by telegraph. 
In 1888, Santo Domingo, Samana, and Puerto Plata 
were connected with the submarine cable system by 



258 THE WEST INDIES 

way of Santiago de Cuba, taking in Mole St. Nicho- 
las on the way. Still the foreign trade has amounted 
to less than $4,000,000 a year, the imports being 
valued at about $1,703,595, and the exports at $2,- 
200,000. The latter consist chiefly of sugar, coffee, 
cacao, mahogany, logwood, hides, goat-skins, and 
honey, and the former of cotton fabrics, hardware, 
earthenware, and breadstuffs. About half this trade 
is with the United States. Since 1893, the " San 
Domingo Improvement Company " of New York 
has had charge of the collection of customs and the 
distribution of the revenues of the republic. There 
are no national taxes except the customs duties, and 
these increased from $652,000 in 1892 to $1,601,000 
in 1897. There have been considerable public im- 
provements made in recent years, including the 
building of docks, warehouses, and lighthouses, as 
well as railroads and telegraph lines. The people 
of Santo Domingo are generally peaceable and law- 
abiding, and are especially courteous and hospitable 
to strangers, but there is a lack of enterprise and 
energy, and as a consequence the great natural 
resources of the country have been little developed. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PUERTO RICO 

THE great submarine plateau from which the 
Bahama Islands spring and the vast ocean 
ridges to the south of it converge to an apex some 
1500 miles from their western origin. The two 
ridges which run through Cuba and Jamaica, one 
having its apparent point of departure at Yucatan 
and the other at the angle of Honduras, coalesce in 
the island of Haiti, and sink again below the sea- 
level in a single ridge, which reappears at a distance 
of ninety miles in the island of Puerto Rico. This 
island stands like a huge pillar, with deep abysses 
on either side, between the broad and varied forma- 
tion which constitutes a submerged extension of the 
continent and the long chain of rocky and coralline 
isles that sweeps in a vast semicircle to the coast of 
South America. It stands guard at the main en- 
trance to the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic 
Ocean, in the natural pathway from the east to the 
narrow isthmus which divides the American Medi- 
terranean from the Pacific. The channel between 
Haiti and Puerto Rico is called the Mona Passage, 

259 



260 THE WEST INDIES 

and near the middle of it rises Mona (** Monkey ") 
Island, which, belongs politically to Puerto Rico. 

The western coast-line of the large island runs 
irregularly north and south from Punta de Pefla 
Ahujerada to Punta de Aguila, with the Punta del 
Juguro marking the farthest westward projection, 
about one third of the way down the coast. This 
western boundary is a little over forty miles long, 
and the island extends eastward a little more than 
one hundred miles in the form of a parallelogram, 
with its north and south sides slightly indented 
here and there with bays and inlets. Toward the 
eastern end it diminishes in width, and its outline 
becomes more broken, while the eastern coast-line 
is quite irregular and deflected to a north-easterly 
and south-westerly direction, with two small islands 
and a number of islets and keys lying off the shore. 
At the north-east angle is Cape San Juan, and the 
south-eastern cape is Malapasqua. 

The largest of the outlying islands is Vieques, or 
" Crab," which is about seventeen miles long by five 
wide, with a ridge of hills running through its length. 
North of its eastern end is La Culebra (" The 
Snake"), six miles by three, with a rugged but 
wooded surface. Near by this latter is Culebrita, 
or Little Snake, and North-east and Bird Keys, 
which are rocky but wooded cones rising out of the 
sea; and between it and Cape San Juan is a string 
of reefs, with the cluster of isles named Obispo, 
Zancudo, and Ramos off the shore opposite Fajardo. 
Including these Islas del Pasaje, or Islands of the 
Passage, and Mona Island in the west, the area of 



CHARACTERISTICS OF PUERTO RICO 26 1 

Puerto Rico is set down as 3630 square miles, which 
puts it somewhat below Jamaica in size and makes 
it about one fifth as large as Haiti and one twelfth 
the extent of Cuba. 

An elevated ridge of land runs through the island 
from west to east a few miles from the southern 
coast, throwing off spurs here and there irregularly 
in a northerly direction ; but it is hardly more than 
a range of wooded hills with a general altitude of 
less than 1500 feet, though in the east it is dignified 
by the name of the Sierra Cayey. There is a short 
range more worthy of the name of mountains in the 
north-east, sweeping in a southerly curve from near 
Cape San Juan westward, called the Sierra de 
Luquillo, which culminates in El Yunque, "The 
Anvil, ' ' a graceful peak over 3600 feet high. Except 
this solitary summit, none of the heights break into 
rocks or precipices, and nowhere on the surface are 
there signs of volcanic action. The whole rocky 
skeleton of the island is overlaid with soil, mostly 
rich in quality, and the many hills and ridges are 
covered with forests and dense vegetation to the 
very top. The outer formation of rock is chiefly 
limestone, and in some of the lowlands near the 
coast there are caves, notably in the vicinity of 
Arecibo on the northern side ; and there are coral- 
line structures here and there, though no such islets 
and reefs as profusely stud parts of the shores of 
Cuba and Haiti. 

There are hundreds of running streams, some of 
them rivers of considerable size, winding through 
the long valleys. Seventeen are enumerated as 



262 THE WEST INDIES 

running to the north coast, sixteen to the south, 
nine to the east, and only two to the west. The 
longest naturally take a northerly course, and the 
principal ones on that slope are the Arecibo in 
the west and the Cayagua in the east. On the 
shorter southern slope are the Coamo and the Ja- 
caguas. None of these are navigable to any con- 
siderable distance, and they are not often broken 
by picturesque waterfalls; but they lend an aspect 
of rich verdure and splendid beauty to nearly all the 
land. Exposed directly to the steady draft of the 
north-east trade-winds, Puerto Rico has a heavier 
rainfall on the northern than on the southern slope, 
and there are places on the latter where irrigation is 
needed for a proper distribution of the water supply 
throughout the seasons. The line of coast is de- 
pressed at frequent intervals by the river valleys, 
and there are many small bays, some of which afford 
safe harbours, though few are deep. The principal 
ports on the northern coast are Arecibo and San 
Juan de Puerto Rico; on the western coast, Agua- 
dilla and Mayaguez ; on the south, Guanica, Guayar 
nilla, La Playa, '* the Beach " (of Ponce), and Arroyo ; 
and on the east, Humacao and Fajardo. 

Comparatively little has been ascertained regard- 
ing the mineral resources of the island, but gold, 
iron, copper, and coal are known to exist beneath 
the verdant surface. Placer mining for gold has 
been carried on to a small extent in the Luquillo 
and Corozal districts, and there are copper mines at 
Naguabo. The deposits of copper sulphates are 
quite extensive but little worked. There is a valu- 



CHARACTERISTICS OF PUERTO RICO 263 

able magnetic iron ore, and small foundries have 
been established in San Juan, Ponce, and Maya- 
guez. The coal is chiefly a variety of lignite found 
in the west near Moca and Utuado. There is a 
compact limestone which makes an excellent build- 
ing material, and several varieties of marble are 
easily obtained. 

In the forests, which cover all the higher eleva- 
tions, there are many species of trees which afford 
valuable timber. Among these are mahogany, 
cedar, ebony, lignum vitae, and a tree peculiar to 
the island which bears a profusion of odorous white 
flowers and yields a timber called Sabino. Log- 
wood, fustic, and other dye materials are also abund- 
ant in the forests, which are easily accessible except 
for the obstruction of rank vegetation, through 
which no roads or trails have been broken. The 
cocoanut palm is common, and there is all the 
variety of tropical plants and fruits found upon the 
large islands to the west, growing in even greater 
luxuriance on account of the unbroken richness of 
the soil and the general distribution of water in run- 
ning streams. Shrubs and herbaceous plants with 
showy flowers are not, however, characteristic of 
the landscape, which is conspicuous for its verdure 
rather than its bloom. This verdure includes rank 
growths of ferns, some of which tower into spread- 
ing trees with graceful, drooping fronds. 

There is, comparatively speaking, a lack of birds 
as well as of flowers. Though there are parrots, 
pigeons, cuckoos, and humming-birds, orioles, war- 
blers, and nightingales, the verdurous landscape is 



264 THE WEST INDIES 

not much lighted by brilliant plumage or enlivened 
by notes of song. Wild animals are few, though 
the agouti and the armadillo are still found; rep- 
tiles are not specially plentiful, and insects are less 
intrusive than in most tropical climes. There are, 
however, some objectionable specimens, including 
a chigoe that will bore through the sole of a shoe 
and attack the sole of the foot. 

Puerto Rico is a land of rich soil and luxuriant 
vegetation rather than of varied animal life, and it 
is capable of cultivation far beyond anything to 
which it has been subjected. Among its indigenous 
products are tobacco, maize, cotton, cacao, yams, 
plantains, bananas, oranges, and many other fruits, 
and great crops of these can be easily raised; but 
the leading '' staples " have long been the exotic 
coffee and sugar-cane, on account of the profit which 
they yielded in former days. They still hold the 
front place in spite of negligent cultivation, de- 
pressed prices, and the lack of proper means of 
transportation. The climate of the island does not 
differ materially from that of the other Antilles, 
except that it has less of the variety due to differ- 
ences of altitude. It is very warm and very wet in 
the summer months, and on the northern slope the 
rainy season is rather prolonged. The heat and 
humidity in August and September are oppressive 
and enervating in the low lands near the coast, and 
malarial fevers are common in the absence of sani- 
tary and hygienic precautions. Little attention has 
been given in the past to drainage or a proper dis- 
tribution of the abundant water supply, and where 



CHARACTERISTICS OF PUERTO RICO 265 

there is a dense population in the artificial condi- 
tions of towns epidemics sometimes appear. But 
on the whole the chmate is remarkably healthful, 
and from November to June has a delightful soft- 
ness and splendour. The prevailing winds are 
easterly and north-easterly, and there is a notable 
absence of the land breeze which is characteristic of 
the islands farther west. Sometimes in the wet 
season there are thunder-storms of terrific violence, 
and occasionally the hurricanes, which are bred be- 
low the Caribbees, sweep with all their fury across 
this narrow barrier to the open ocean, though their 
customary track is farther west. A very destructive 
one visited the island in 1825. 




CHAPTER XXIV 

PUERTO RICO IN SPANISH HANDS 

WHEN Columbus sailed from the northern side 
of Hispaniola for Spain, after his first voy- 
age of discovery, he probably did not observe the 
verdant heights of the beautiful island to the south, 
for he left no record of it ; but on his return in No- 
vember, 1493, he came up from the Caribbees past 
the Virgins and skirted along its southern shore. 
As he went up its western coast on his way to the 
forlorn colony which he had left at La Navidad, 
he made a landing in a broad bay where he found 
generous springs of water for his ships. He called 
the place Aguadilla, admired the waving palm-trees 
on the sandy shore and the green background of 
wooded hills, and went his way. The natives called 
their land Borinquen, but with his fondness for 
labelling his discoveries with the names of saints 
Columbus called it San Juan Bautista, or St. John 
the Baptist. 

For fifteen years the island was left undisturbed 
under the cacique Agueynaba, whose people were 
said to be numerous, and were, so far as we know, 

266 



PUERTO RrCO IN SPANISH HANDS 267 

happy and harmless. Before Diego Colon came 
from Spain to exercise his inherited prerogatives 
and send Esquivel to Jamaica and Velasquez to 
Cuba, a Spanish commander in the east of Hispa- 
niola, Juan Ponce de Leon by name, made a pro- 
specting trip across the channel, lured by reports of 
great wealth in the unexplored island of San Juan 
Bautista. He was received with imprudent hospital- 
ity by Agueynaba, who with childish delight showed 
him glittering grains oi gold from the river beds. 
Confirmed in his anticipations of wealth, Ponce de 
Leon returned to Santo Domingo, and two years 
later, in 15 10, went with an armed expedition to 
take possession of Agueynaba's realm. He ex- 
plored the northern coast until he came to a deep 
inlet opening into a spacious bay, and near this he 
founded the town of Caparra ; but finding that he 
had chosen the wrong side of the bay for defensive 
purposes, he started again a year later on the island 
that guarded the entrance on the east, and built a 
city which he called San Juan Bautista de Puerto 
Rico. This became the capital of the new colony, 
and remained so while Spain held her sovereignty in 
the western world. Unwittingly Ponce de Leon 
gave a new name to the whole island, for though 
Puerto Rico meant simply a *' splendid port," it 
was incongruously applied to a land of large extent 
and many ports, and the English, with their pro- 
pensity for assimilating foreign words to the sound 
of their own language, came to call it Porto Rico, 
as if it were Portuguese instead of Spanish. 

Ponce de Leon had hardly started his new colony 



268 THE WEST INDIES 

when he was carried away by his dream of the fount- 
ain of perpetual youth, and went wandering up the 
Bahamas; but he returned, and, though he received 
the imposing title of Adelantado of Bemini and 
Florida, he gave his attention for a time to the 
gentle process of exterminating the natives of Puerto 
Rico with firearms and bloodhounds, and to med- 
dling with the Caribs farther south, by way of de- 
veloping the resources of the land. He had adopted 
the repartimiento plan of dividing up the territory 
and its inhabitants, and because the people would 
not work as slaves they had to die. As for the 
Caribs, they were no doubt obtrusive and trouble- 
some, but Ponce de Leon's expedition down the 
islands for their punishment was a disastrous failure. 
Finally, in 1521, the conquistador went to take pos- 
session of his realm of Florida; but its native deni- 
zens objected vigorously with bows and arrows, and 
instead of renewing his youth or prolonging his life, 
the visionary warrior retired to Cuba to die of 
wounds. 

For a long while after that little is known of 
Puerto Rico's history. In fact there seems to have 
been little history to know. The colony was at- 
tacked by Caribs and by hurricanes and gave up the 
struggle for existence ; but the Spanish held posses- 
sion at San Juan with soldiers and guns in spite of 
visits from English and Dutch admirals, French 
corsairs, and all manner of smugglers and buc- 
caneers. Drake in 1595, finding that there was no 
ransom to be extorted, sacked the place and left it, 
and in 1598, the Duke of Cumberland repeated the 



PUERTO RICO IN SPANISH HANDS 269 

process; but Baldwin Heinrich, the Dutchman, in 
161 5, met with spirited resistance from the garrison 
and lost his life. 

All through the seventeenth century and far into 
the eighteenth the beauty and riches of the island 
were left to flourish in lonely desolation, save for 
a few places feebly held by soldiers on the coast, 
and here and there a languishing settlement. It 
is recorded that in 1700 there were only three 
villages in all the island, and in 1765 the entire 
population numbered 45,000. It seems like a 
strange oversight that the enemies of Spain did 
not seize this neglected domain ; but though they 
stopped to fire guns at the forts of San Juan 
now and then, they do not seem to have been 
attracted by a land where there was nothing to steal 
and one had to work in order to get wealth. At last 
Spain began to wake up to the value of this posses- 
sion, and not only were slaves introduced to culti- 
vate plantations, but Andalusian peasants were sent 
out as real colonists. In 1775 the population was 
79,000, of which 50,000 consisted of negro slaves, 
and when Lord Abercrombie made his attack on 
San Juan in 1797, he had to give it up after a siege 
of three days. 

The fertility of the soil and the rich returns that 
came from raising coffee and sugar gave a strong 
impulse to immigration from Europe, and to the 
increase of slaves, and the population grew, the 
white element gaining more rapidly than the black 
and mixed breeds. At the time of the revolutions 
in South America and in Central America and Mex- 



270 THE WEST INDIES 

ico, many lovers of peace and seekers for prosperity 
betook themselves to this tranquil isle. Thus it 
came about that after a century or two of neglect 
and solitude, it was one of the most populous and 
thriving of the Antilles. Of the progress of popula- 
tion there is no accurate record, but the last Spanish 
census, taken in 1887, made it 799,000, of which 
475,000 was white and 324,000 black and " col- 
oured," or mixed. It was estimated in 1898 at 
over 900,000, nearly two thirds Spanish and Creoles 
of European descent, while the mulattoes outnum- 
bered the negroes. 

Puerto Rico during the comparatively short his- 
tory of its development was rather submissive to 
Spanish rule, partly because that rule was somewhat 
milder than in Cuba and partly because resistance was 
hopeless. In 1820, when the spirit of revolution was 
rife and there were many refugees from countries in 
which it was raging, an uprising was attempted even 
here, and as Spain had her hands full at the time, the 
insurrectionary movement was kept alive until 1823, 
when she had no difficulty in reasserting her author- 
ity. An attempt at revolt was made in 1867, when 
the Quban plots were fermenting, but it was promptly 
suppressed, with the help of an alarming earthquake. 
In fact, the people had little chance to arm or to 
organise ; there were no mountain fastnesses in which 
to take refuge; and it required but few Spanish 
soldiers to keep them in subjection. 

In 1869, the Spanish Cortes decreed a constitu- 
tion to Puerto Rico, which made it in form a pro- 
vince of Spain, instead of a colonial dependency. It 



PUERTO RICO IN SPANISH HANDS 2/1 

was to be represented in the Cortes by regular 
provincial deputies, elected upon the same condi- 
tions of suffrage as those prevailing in Spain. The 
governor-general was to be the resident representa- 
tive of the sovereign power. He was at once the 
captain-general of the armed forces and the chief 
administrative officer. As civil governor he was 
president of the supreme tribunal of justice and the 
head of an administrative council appointed at 
Madrid, having supervision of civil, military, and 
ecclesiastical affairs; but the fiscal interests of the 
government were in charge of a specially appointed 
officer, called an * * Intendant. * ' There was a bishop, 
appointed by the Crown, with the approval of the 
Pope, and made subordinate to the archbishop of 
Santiago de Cuba. The judicial system was like 
that of Cuba, with an Audiencia Real, district courts, 
and local magistrates called alcaldes. These were 
all appointed by the central government, and the 
provincial autonomy was a mere matter of form. 
The province was divided into seven departments 
for convenience of central administration and with 
little regard for actual local self-government. The 
names of the departments and their chief towns, 
with the population of each, according to the 
last Spanish census, is here given in a compact 
table : 

DEPARTMENTS. POP. CHIEF TOWNS. POP. 

iSan Juan 27,000 
Bayamon 15,000 
Rio Piedras 11,000 

A».«o;v.« xo^ oo,- i Arecibo 30,000 

^""^^° "4,835 I utuado 31.00c 



272 



THE WEST INDIES 



DEPARTMENTS. 



CHIEF TOWNS, 



POP, 



Aguadilla 86,55] 



Aguadilla 16,000 

Lares 17,000 

,, ^ ^ o Mayaguez 28,000 

Mayaguez 116,982 io r- 

•^ ^ ( San German. 20,000 

f Cabo Rojo 17,000 

Ponce 43,000 

Ponce 160, 140 -{ Yauco . . . . , , 25,000 

Juana Diaz 21,000 

Adjuntas 16,000 

G-y— *«'4| g-^-;::;;;;;;;:;:: ;^,C 

Humacao 88,270 Humacao 15,000 



806,708 



The island of Vieques was a sub-department of 
Humacao, and used chiefly as a military penal sta- 
tion. The discrepancy between the aggregate of 
the table and the total population previously given 
belongs to the official statements. 



t-Mri. 







CHAPTER XXV 

PORTS AND TOWNS OF PUERTO RICO 

THE only inlet on the whole coast of Puerto Rico 
that affords a landlocked harbour is that on 
which Ponce de Leon established his headquarters. 
It has a narrow, winding channel, but the basin within 
is deep and spacious. Though there is a lofty back- 
ground of hills at a distance, and El Yunque, the 
highest summit on the island, is visible, the land 
about the bay is low and swampy, except on the 
west, where the islands of Cabra and Cabrita are 
made virtually part of the mainland by connecting 
sand-banks. The harbour is inclosed to the east- 
ward of the channel by a coralline island, connected 
now with the main shore by a causeway and the 
Bridge of San Antonio. It was on the western 
point of this island, by the harbour entrance, that 
San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico was first founded, 
and there the capital city, generally called simply 
San Juan, still stands, though it has grown beyond 
the ancient walls which constituted part of the forti- 
fications of Santa Catalina. Morro Castle is still 
close to the city inclosure, as are all the defences of 

273 



274 THE WEST INDIES 

the port. This adds to the picturesque appearance 
of the place, but exposes it to direct attack in case 
of hostile operations. 

The island on which the town was built extends 
about two and a quarter miles along the channel into 
the bay, but is only from a quarter to half a mile in 
Avidth, and ends in a bluff about a hundred feet high. 
The walls and battlements are mediaeval in aspect, 
and the inclosure is crowded with the habitations of 
some 20,000 people. Six parallel streets run length- 
wise of the narrow space and are crossed by seven 
others. The houses are of gray stone, or of brick 
stuccoed over and tinted drab, yellow, pink, or blue, 
making a variegated and attractive picture as seen 
from the sea. The houses are mostly of two stories, 
but the lower is a kind of high basement crowded 
with negroes and people of the poorer sort, while the 
upper floors are occupied by respectable and well-to- 
do families. There are iron balconies to the main 
or upper story, but the windows which open upon 
these have no glass behind the shutters, or jalousies, 
and the houses have no visible chimneys. They are 
entered through interior patios, and some have roof 
gardens, but there are no open spaces about them. 
The people are dependent upon rain for their water 
supply, and there is no drainage except from the 
surface. It is not strange if the narrow and crowded 
streets become unwholesome in a moist, hot atmos- 
phere, and are haunted by vermin and the germs of 
fever. 

-Besides the forts and barracks there are a " gov- 
ernor's palace," a city hall, theatre, cathedral, 







fee 



PORTS AND TOIVNS OF PUERTO RICO 275 

and a number of churches. The Casa Blanca, or 
" White House," of Ponce de Leon is still standing 
where it looked northward over the sea so long ago, 
and the dust of the visionary conquistador is cher- 
ished in a leaden casket in the old Dominican church. 
It was taken from the vault under the altar in 1863, 
for the purpose of being placed beneath a monument 
which was to be raised to the memory of the founder 
of San Juan, but the monument has not been built, 
and the casket waits the never-coming ' ' maftana' ' for 
its final repose. On the bay side below the old 
walled town is the Marina, with wharves and wooden 
buildings and some humble dwellings, and in the 
outskirts on the one roadway to the mainland is 
Puerta de Tierra, with some 2000 inhabitants. At 
San Turce, out on the road beyond, are suburban 
residences, and also at Rio Piedras and Catafio 
across the bay. The near-by rural retreats are 
mostly on sand spits surrounded by mangrove 
swamps. A few miles inland to the west of the 
capital is Bayamon on a river of the same name. It 
is the centre and market-place of a rich agricultural 
region. 

Arecibo, farther west on the north coast, is called 
a seaport, but it is some distance from the shore, 
and the Rio Grande de Arecibo is a shallow stream, 
navigated only by flat-bottomed boats. The town, 
nevertheless, affords the outlet to the sea of a fertile 
district which contains the populous towns of Ad- 
juntas and Utuado. It is built about a central plaza 
upon which the principal public buildings face. 
Just around the north-west angle of the island on 



^^6 THE WEST INDIES 

the west coast is Aguadilla, whose harbour is shel- 
tered from the trade-winds, and which has a thriving 
trade. From it are shipped the sugar and coffee 
of the plantations of Moca, El Pepino, and Lares 
in the rich Colubrinas valley. Mayaguez, farther 
to the south, is the most important shipping point on 
the west coast, and yet it stands some distance back 
and a considerable stream crossed by an iron bridge 
intervenes between the town and the roadstead for 
vessels. Transportation to and fro is conducted in 
a primitive fashion, and yet from Mayaguez is shipped 
a large share of the products of Anaso, Cabo Rojo, 
San German, and the adjacent region. Oranges, 
bananas, and other fruits figure conspicuously in the 
exports from this point. 

Guanica on the southern coast has one of the best 
natural harbours on the whole island, but the adja- 
cent country is marshy. Here, nevertheless, is the 
outlet of a productive district farther inland, which 
includes, besides the southern precincts of San Ger- 
man, Sabana Grande and Yauco. Ponce, the largest 
and commercially the most important city on the 
island, is three miles inland from the wharves and 
warehouses of La Playa. Its public buildings are of 
stone and brick, and the most important of them 
front on a large public square. There are fine gar- 
dens and plantations in the neighbouring country, 
and the considerable towns of Juana Diaz and Coamo 
are near by. Mineral and thermal springs add their 
attractions to this part of the island, and there are 
some famous baths at Coamo. The place of most 
consequence east of Ponce is Guayama, near the port 



PORTS AND TOWNS OF PUERTO RICO 2 7/ 

of Arroyo. The eastern end of the island is the least 
populous part, and, being exposed to the trade- 
winds, there are no sheltered harbours, and the 
towns are built back from the coast. The most 
important are Cayey, Naguabo, San Lorenzo, and 
Humacao. This is a hilly region with coffee planta- 
tions interspersed with stretches of grazing land. 
Near San Lorenzo are some hot springs. 

Fajardo is little more than an open roadstead on 
a channel sheltered by the group of small islands 
heretofore mentioned, but on the south side of the 
island of Culebra is a safe port frequented by fisher- 
men and wood-cutters, though the island itself has no 
permanent residents. On the north side of Vieques 
is Port Mula at the mouth of a little stream. It con- 
tains the residence of the local governor, and has 
about looo inhabitants. On a projecting point is a 
lighthouse with a fixed red light. On the south side 
of this island is the little village of Isabela Segunda. 
The group of islands which extends into the Virgin 
Passage are picturesque to look upon, but there is 
little industrial life among them. 

Among the features of the country along the south 
coast of Puerto Rico are occasional marshes, where 
salt is prepared for the market. These are found 
near Cape Rojo and Guanica and at Salinas. The 
interior towns are mostly points for the collection 
of agricultural produce to be sent to the coast, and 
they are located altogether in the valleys. 






CHAPTER XXVI 

GENERAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO 

THE development of Puerto Rico came after the 
era for creating great West Indian plantations, 
and the increase of population, when it began, was 
so rapid as to prevent the concentration of land in 
few hands. Moreover, this increase was caused 
largely by immigration of white settlers from Euro- 
pean and Spanish-American countries, and produced 
a genuine peasantry attached to the soil. The 
negroes, not having been the property of great 
planters under slave-driving overseers, were better 
treated than those in most of the other islands, and 
when they were all freed in 1873, they found them- 
selves more nearly on a footing of equality with the 
rest of the people. They were also in a minority 
and not an object of dread ; and of the 900,000 and 
more inhabitants now in the island scarcely more 
than one third are black or " coloured." This dis- 
tinction between negroes and those of mixed blood 
as " black " and " coloured " is generally made 
throughout the West Indies. 

In the middle of the last century there were almost 
278 



GENERAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO 279 

no towns, and the few inhabitants were so dispersed 
over the country that they seldom came together 
except for some religious or festal celebration, when 
they met at an appointed place in the middle of a 
parish. During the rapid growth of population 
in the present century a considerable number of 
towns and cities have been built up, but none of 
them are large, and nearly five sixths of the people 
are still rural in their way of living. Their dwellings 
are mostly scattered along the valleys, where alone 
there are practicable roads. There are very few on 
the tops or slopes of the hills. Nearly all the 
natives, of whatever complexion, are engaged in 
agriculture in some form. The soil of the high- 
lands is a rich red loam, and that of the valleys a 
black mould, while near the coast it becomes more 
or less sandy. It is nearly everywhere extremely 
fertile, but methods of cultivation are still very 
primitive. Oxen are harnessed to rude implements 
by the horns and prodded with cruel goads. No 
crops are raised on a large scale, and hardly any 
modern appliances or processes are used. The land 
is capable of producing more sugar to the acre than 
any other in the whole archipelago, and the finest 
of cotton and tobacco can be raised, but even rural 
industry is backward. 

In general the low lands near the coast are oc- 
cupied by sugar plantations, interspersed with fruit 
groves and orchards. The tobacco fields are on 
higher ground back of this belt, while the slopes of 
the hills are covered with coffee gardens. The 
means of internal communication are poor, and the 



280 THE WEST INDIES 

transportation of produce to the towns is clumsy to 
a degree. Often it is carried long distances on the 
heads of men and women and the backs of beasts. 
Frequently there is only a trail or bridle-path grown 
up with tangled vegetation and crossed by bridgeless 
streams. A system of roads has been planned but 
only partly executed. There is a fine military road 
which winds across the island from Ponce to San 
Juan, making a distance of more than eighty miles, 
with stations under military guard at frequent inter- 
vals; but this was constructed and maintained by 
the government for strategic purposes. The princi- 
pal towns are connected by roads, some of which 
have been kept in fair condition ; but those which 
have not been solidly built for military use are apt 
to be washed out by heavy rains and grown over by 
rank vegetation. 

A railroad system has been projected to connect 
the towns near the coast all around the island, with 
inland spurs at all important points. The plan is 
quite feasible. Roads have already been built from 
Mayaguez to San German in the west and from 
Ponce to Coamo in the south, and there is a line 
across the island from Guayama to San Juan. As 
hardly any point is more than twenty miles from 
a coast town, the development of means of commu- 
nication will be an easy matter. Most of the towns 
are already connected by telegraph, and the tele- 
phone has come into use in the principal cities. 
Telegraphic communication has been established by 
submarine cable from San Juan to St. Thomas and 
thence down the Lesser Antilles to South America, 



GENERAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO 28 1 

and also from the capital to Jamaica, Cuba, and the 
United States in the other direction. 

Notwithstanding the backwardness of industrial 
methods and a general lack of capital and enterprise 
in the island, and in spite of the exacting and oppres- 
sive rule of Spain, the numerous population has been 
fairly prosperous, and a considerable trade has been 
built up, which is mostly in the hands of Spaniards 
or other foreigners. The collecting and distributing 
of commodities have been effected by an active 
coasting trade, but the foreign commerce has been 
carried on chiefly through the Danish island of St. 
Thomas, which was long the principal entrepot of 
trade in this part of the West Indies. The latest 
statistics of foreign trade give the imports as about 
$17,000,000 in annual value, and the exports $16,- 
500,000. Over one half the exports consists of coffee 
and a little less than one fourth of sugar, the next 
largest item being tobacco. Cacao and fruits make 
up a large part of the remainder, though some tim- 
ber, hides, and rum are sent abroad. The exports 
to Spain, under her system of trade restriction, 
amounted to 28,750,000 pesetas annually, and the 
imports from Spain to 21,500,000 pesetas, the peseta 
being about equivalent to a French franc, or one fifth 
of a dollar. The annual revenue of the government 
under Spain was about $4,000,000, and the expend- 
itures a little less, more than one fourth of the 
latter being for the support of the Spanish military 
force in the island. 

Of the social condition of the people of Puerto 
Rico there is not much to be said. As in Cuba, the 



282 THE WEST INDIES 

Spaniards have been wont to dominate society in 
the chief cities, with the same claims of superiority, 
but with something less of aristocratic pretension. 
Many of the Creoles, or descendants of the earlier 
Spanish and other European settlers, are people of 
property and education. The mass of the whites are 
peaceable, tractable, and fairly intelligent, but there 
has been no general system of public instruction, 
and the ratio of illiteracy is large. The mass of the 
rural inhabitants are simple in their habits and buy 
little in the markets. They subsist largely upon 
the fruit and vegetables which grow so abundantly 
about them with little attention to cultivation, need 
little clothing, and are content with very primitive 
shelter. The CathoHc religion is the prevailing one, 
as in all Spanish lands; but in consequence, perhaps, 
of the rapid growth and the mixed origin of the 
population, there has been a wide toleration, and 
the Protestant sects have a foothold in some of the 
towns. One of the important buildings in Ponce is 
an English Episcopal church. 

There is a class of small landowners and rural 
labourers called Gibaros, who are said to be of old 
Spanish stock with some mixture of the aboriginal 
Indian. There may be a fruitful field of archaeologi- 
cal or ethnological study in this island, with refer- 
ence to the original races of the Antilles and the 
adjacent continents. It is here that the Arawaks 
seem to have made their last stand before the pur- 
suing Caribs, in the migration from the south; but 
of what preceded these migrating people little trace 
has heretofore been found. Some of the stone 



GENERAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO 283 

relics, first discovered in quite recent times, are sim- 
ilar to some that have been dug up in Mexico. 
Near the Rio Grande de Loiza in the north-east 
there is a rude monument of stone with curious de- 
signs roughly wrought upon it. Fragments of pot- 
tery, regarded as ancient, have been unearthed, and 
there may be a sufficient crop of such things if prop- 
erly cultivated to teach something new in Amer- 
ican archaeology. 




Wjfcfe^^gl 


13^^ 


tt^ 


^^Mi^ 


!^pp^ 


^fe 



CHAPTER XXVII 

PUERTO RICO IN AMERICAN HANDS 

SHORTLY after the surrender of Santiago de 
Cuba to the military forces of the United 
States in July, 1898, Major-General Nelson A. Miles, 
commanding general of the American army, with 
about 3500 men, who had been brought to Cuba as 
reinforcements but were no longer needed there, 
proceeded to the capture of Puerto Rico. He sailed 
from Guantanamo Bay, July 21st, with the cruiser 
Columbia^ the auxiliary cruiser Yale, and the gun- 
boat Gloucester, and made a landing at Guanica on 
the south coast, on the 25th, without resistance.. 
As he proceeded toward Ponce, the town of Yauco 
surrendered with enthusiasm, and he was welcomed 
at the chief city of the island on the 28th with ac- 
clamation as a liberator. 

Meantime other forces had been dispatched, under 
General Schwan, from Tampa, Fla., General Wilson, 
from Charleston, S. C, and General Brooke, from 
Newport News, Va. The last named landed at 
Arroyo to the east of Ponce and took possession of 
Guayama. The entire force in the island was then 

284 



PUERTO RICO IN AMERICAN HANDS 2^5 

about 17,000 men, and General Miles promptly 
adopted a plan of concentrating it upon San Juan 
over lines that passed through the principal towns. 
He set out upon the military road and passed Coamo 
to Aibonito, while General Brooke advanced toward 
Cayey, intending to join forces with him. General 
Wilson was proceeding northward with Arecibo as 
■his objective point, and General Schwan had passed 
San German and reached Mayaguez on his way to 
the same point through the coast towns. In this 
situation the order came on the 13th of August to 
suspend hostilities on account of the signing of a pro- 
tocol embodying terms of peace with Spain on the 
preceding day. 

B)^ those terms Spain agreed to " cede to the 
United States the island of Puerto Rico and the 
other islands which are at present under the sover- 
eignty of Spain in the Antilles," and immediately 
to ** evacuate " those islands. Three commissioners 
were appointed on each side " to agree upon the 
details of the evacuation of Puerto Rico and other 
islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the An- 
tilles. " Those acting for the United States were 
Rear-Admiral W. S. Schley, Major-General John 
R. Brooke, and Brigadier-General W. W. Gordon. 
They met at San Juan on September 6th, General 
Brooke crossing the island under escort furnished by 
Governor-General Macias from Ponce, where his 
headquarters had been established, and Admiral 
Schley and General Gordon arriving from the United 
States on the transport Seneca. They met with 
cordial co-operation from the Spanish commissioners 



286 THE WEST INDIES 

and other authorities, and the evacuation of the 
island was effected so that the United States flag 
was hoisted over the government buildings at San 
Juan on the i8th of October as a symbol of the new 
sovereignty under which the island of Puerto Rico 
then passed. 

A part of the army of occupation, including 
those who had been wounded in the slight engage- 
ments that had occurred with Spanish detachments 
on the first advances upon the southern towns, and 
those debilitated with malarial fever, were sent 
north, but about 8,000 troops remained under the 
command of General Brooke, who was acting as 
military governor. Local administration was main- 
tained on the old system and the supreme authority 
was continued in the military commander, pending 
the action of the Congress of the United States with 
reference to the future government of the new acqui- 
sition. Late in the year 1898 General Brooke left 
the island for another command, and General Guy 
V. Henry was made the military governor. An 
Assembly was held, which consisted of delegates 
from the cities and towns to the number of seventy, 
to formulate the wishes of the people with rieference 
to their future government. 




CHAPTER XXVIII 

LESSER ANTILLES, CARIBBEES, WINDWARD, 
LEEWARD 

THE designations ** Lesser Antilles " and " Car* 
ibbees " are both loosely applied to all the 
small islands of the West Indies to the east and 
south of the four large islands known as the Greater 
Antilles; but those which are not colonial depend- 
encies of some European power, having passed from 
Spain to Venezuela with the independence of that 
republic, are not rated politically even as West 
Indies. Geographically, these islands appertain to 
at least three different systems, and should be in 
some way distinguished accordingly ; but names are 
a matter of history rather than of science or logic. 
The group to the east of Puerto Rico, called " The 
Virgins," rises from an extension of the submarine 
formation which runs through the Greater Antilles. 
The separating channel, known as the Virgin Pass- 
age, is relatively narrow and shallow, while this 
group is separated from the true Caribbean chain by 
a chasm 6000 feet deep and two hundred and fifty 
miles across. This chain consisting, as we have 

287 



288 THE WEST INDIES 

noted in the early part of this volume, of a main 
volcanic strand that begins with Saba, and an outer 
coralline string that starts with Anguilla and the 
Sombrero rocks, terminates with Grenada, five hun- 
dred miles or more to the south, while Barbados 
stands off a hundred miles eastward in an isolated 
position, and Trinidad and the other islands off the 
Venezuela coast belong distinctly to the continental 
system of South America. The deep-water separa- 
tion between Grenada and the nearest of the latter 
is about as great as that between Barbados and St. 
Vincent. 

The old Spanish navigators appropriately desig- 
nated the islands which constitute the eastern barrier 
of the Caribbean Sea as Barlovento, or " Wind- 
ward," and those along the South American coast 
as Sotavento, or " Leeward," with reference to the 
regular trade-winds, which blow steadily from the 
north-east the greater part of the year; but these 
terms have become perverted and misapplied by 
English authority. The term ** Windward " came 
to be applied to only the lower section of the Carib- 
bees, from the fifteenth parallel southward, and was 
then used as the designation for a colony composed 
of the British islands in that section, which were 
associated together under one government. At 
first this included Barbados, but latterly the Wind- 
ward Islands colony has consisted of St. Lucia, St. 
Vincent, Grenada and the Grenadines, and Tobago, 
though this last is more properly appurtenant to 
Trinidad, which, like Barbados, now constitutes a 
colony by itself. 



WINDWARD ISLANDS 289 

The colony of the Windward Islands has a gov- 
ernor and executlt^e council appointed by the Crown, 
but it is divided into four administrative depart- 
ments, each of which has an executive and a separate 
legislative council of its own. These departments are 
St. Lucia, St. Vincent with a part of the Grenadines, 
Grenada with the rest of the Grenadines, and To-- 
bago; but there is no real autonomy or self-rule in 
these so-called legislative councils. The governor 
and his executive councillors, representing the 
Crown, are all-powerful. The administrator and 
colonial secretary who presides over the local council 
is an appointee of the governor, and so are virtually 
the members of that body. The legislative council 
of Grenada, where the governor himself presides, 
consists of thirteen members, of whom six are ap- 
pointed officials and the other seven, though unoffi- 
cial, are named by the governor. Of course he 
controls a body so constituted in the exercise of its 
limited functions. The legislative council of St. 
Lucia consists of five official and five unofficial mem- 
bers, but the latter are appointed by the governor of 
the colony, as is the official administrator who pre- 
sides. The same system exists in St. Vincent and 
Tobago, except that in the former there are four offi- 
cial and four unofficial members of the council, and 
in the latter three of each class ; but they all repre- 
sent the appointing power and consequently the 
imperial government, and in no sense or degree 
the people of the colony. 

By way of distinction from this southern group of 
islands, those north of 15° north latitude, to and 



290 THE WEST INDIES 

including The Virgins, have been called ** Leeward '* 
very inappropriately, for they are the farthest from 
the leeward position with reference to the Caribbean 
Sea; and in 1871 the British possessions in this 
section were organised into the " Leeward Islands 
Colony." This was in form a confederacy with 
some semblance of representative government and 
local autonomy, but none of the substance. The 
confederacy consisted of five members: Antigua 
with Barbuda attached, St. Christopher and Nevis 
with Anguilla, Montserrat, the Virgin Islands, and 
Dominica. Each of these was formerly a colony, 
and each surrendered its separate existence, in which 
there was a trace of political independence, for the 
advantages of a confederation which is really gov- 
erned by a consolidated bureaucracy. The system 
is complex, with a certain appearance of representa- 
tive character. 

The governor and executive council of the colony 
and all the administrative officials are appointed by 
the Crown. The colony as a whole and each of its 
constituent members has both an executive council 
and a legislative council — sometimes called house 
of assembly, — the former being appointive. The 
legislative council of Antigua consists of twenty- 
four members, six official, six non-official appointed 
by the governor, and twelve elected, — two from the 
city of St. John and one each from the ten other elec- 
toral divisions. The suffrage is so restricted by prop- 
erty qualification that only three hundred or four 
hundred votes are cast as a rule, and councillors 
have sometimes been elected by three or four votes. 



LEEWARD ISLANDS 29! 

There is a higher property qualification for mem- 
bership in the council, and only a small number of 
citizens are eligible. The governor, whose official 
residence is in Antigua, appoints the president and 
vice-president of this local council, and practically 
controls its action. 

The St. Christopher-Nevis council has no elective 
members, but consists of ten official and ten unoffi- 
cial members, the latter, with the president, who 
has a vote, being appointed by the governor, — - 
seven from St. Christopher and three from Nevis. 
In Dominica there is a president and executive 
council of seven, appointed by the Crown, and a 
legislative council of .fourteen members, of whom 
five are officials, two are appointed by the governor, 
and seven are elected under a restricted suffrage. 
The president has a casting vote. In Montserrat 
the council consists of two official and three non- 
official members, none of whom are elected ; and in 
The Virgins there are four official and three non- 
official, all appointees. 

There is a legislative council of the whole colony, 
which is chosen for a term of three years, and meets 
once a year at the capital on the island of Antigua. 
This consists of ten appointed and ten elected mem- 
bers, the former including six public officials and 
four others who are selected by the governor from 
the elected, or the non-official appointed, members 
of the separate island councils. The so-called 
elected members of the colonial council are not 
elected by popular vote, but by the island councils 
from their own elected or non-official members, four 



292 ^^^ tV£ST INDIES 

from Antigua, four from St. Christopher-Nevis, and 
two from Dominica, leaving Montserrat and The Vir. 
gins without representation. The president of this 
colonial legislative council is appointed by the gov- 
ernor from the members who come from the island 
councils, and the body is permitted to choose a vice- 
president for itself. How much of self-government 
or of popular representation there is in this system 
must be obvious ; and, so far as local autonomy in the 
separate islands is concerned, it is only necessary to 
add that the legislative council of the colony can re- 
peal or amend any act of an island council or legislate 
in its place. Moreover the governor can summon, 
prorogue, or dissolve the colonial council at will. 

The reason for this arbitrary form of government 
for these islands no doubt is that the population is 
made up chiefly of negroes who were slaves a gen- 
eration or two ago, and of their descendants, more 
or less mixed with other races. In the English 
islands there is less of the mixed blood, or of 
** coloured " population as distinguished from 
** black," than in the others, for English sentiment 
has been more repugnant to miscegenation, which 
has been pretty general in the French and Dutch 
islands. This same sentiment, or ** race prejudice," 
left the emancipated slaves in a more abject condi- 
tion of ignorance and incapacity for civic duties. 
While in servitude they received neither secular nor 
religious instruction, and practically nothing was 
afterwards done to fit them for the exercise of politi- 
cal rights. As they largely outnumbered the whites, 
there was no apparent desire to intrust them with 
such rights or to prepare them for their exercise. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE VIRGINS AND THE DANISH ISLANDS 

ON his second voyage in November, 1493, Co- 
lumbus came up the Caribbees scattering holy- 
names among the islands, and when he reached the 
last group before turning westward he disposed of 
the whole procession by calling them " The Vir- 
gins," in honour of St. Ursula and the spotless band 
she led through Europe to be slaughtered by the 
Huns. As he departed he bestowed separate names 
on St. Thomas and St. John, and saw in the dis- 
tance on his left a verdant island which he endowed 
with the name of the Holy Cross, Santa Cruz. 
These three now belong to Denmark, but the rest 
of The Virgins are part of the British " Leeward 
Islands Colony. ' ' There are said to be a hundred of 
them, but for the most part they are a barren lot, 
mere wind-blown islets, with scanty vegetation and 
no inhabitants. Though they occupy a watery space 
of nearly one hundred miles by twenty, their total 
inhabited area is only fifty-seven square miles, and 
their population about 500Q. On the few peopled 

293 



294 THE WEST INDIES 

Spots there is a little raising of sugar and cotton, 
and latterly of sisal, and some pasturing of cattle, 
and here and there guano is found, or salt is ob- 
tained; but the population has long been on the 
decline, and the life of The Virgins seems to have 
been waning. 

The two most important islands are Tortola and 
Virgin Gorda. The former is crescent-shaped and 
traversed by a ridge which rises into one peak i8cx) 
feet above the sea. Just north of the island a line 
of reefs beginning with " Jorst Van Dyck's Guano 
Isle " runs to St. Thomas, and another extends from 
Virgin Gorda to St. John. These inclose that ex- 
panse of water like an inland sea which is called the 
** Road of the Virgins." The vagrant buccaneers 
used to wander in here and make a retreat of Tor- 
tola, but they were succeeded by a sedate Quaker 
community, which tried an unsuccessful experiment 
of cultivating plantations with free Hegro labour. 
Their unprofitable example was not followed for. a 
long time after; and since slavery was abolished 
Tortola has pined away. Its only port is Road 
Town, and its chief export is pineapples, which get 
into the channels of commerce at St. Thomas. 

Virgin Gorda consists mostly of rugged highlands, 
and is almost uninhabited, though a little fort is 
maintained to guard the " Road." The English 
sailors used to call the place Spanish Town, which 
the negroes corrupted into** Penniston." A line of 
reefs forming the outer rampart of the submarine 
plateau on which The Virgins stand terminates in 
Anegada (** swamped "), which is half submerged 



THE VIRGINS AND THE DANISH ISIANDS 295 

when the waves run high, and has been the scene of 
many a wreck. There used to be tales of sunken 
galleons hereabouts and of treasures hid in caves, 
but nobody has been able to derive wealth from this 
legendary source. Some of The Virgins received 
from buccaneers and other profane navigators less 
sanctimonious names than Columbus was wont to 
bestow. Besides Jorst Van Dyck's Guano Isle, 
here are Rum Island, Beef Island, Prickly Pear, 
Camphor and Salt, Dutchman's Cap, Dead Man's 
Chest, and Broken Jerusalem. More than once the 
whole dreary group has been lashed unmercifully by 
hurricanes. 

Near these English Virgins is an island with a 
history. St. Thomas is known the world over as 
a seaport, a port of call for all manner of craft going 
and coming in those waters, while the real name of 
the seaport town, Charlotte Amalia, is hardly known 
at all. In fact, the port is pretty much all there is 
to the island. St. Thomas is less than forty miles 
east of Puerto Rico, and is thirteen miles long by 
three wide, containing about thirty-five square miles 
of area. A ridge runs through it lengthwise, attain- 
ing its highest elevation of about 1500 feet in West 
Mountain. On the southern slope there were sugar 
plantations in the old slavery days, but latterly they 
have been devoted mainly to growing maize, vege- 
tables, and fruit, and to pastures of guinea grass. 
The island is still a place of traffic and shipping, 
and nearly all its 15,000 people, of whom nine 
tenths are blacks, or" coloured " in various shades, 
live in and about the port. The bay on which the 



296 THE WEST INDIES 

town is snugly built is on the south side of the 
island. It is nearly circular and almost landlocked, 
and is deep and spacious. The principal street of 
the town runs along the curve of the shore and out 
into the country on either side. The background is 
an amphitheatre of mountains with bold headlands, 
and within its circuit rise terraces of streets and gar- 
dens in picturesque fashion, with red-tiled roofs. 
Most of the white citizens reside in the outskirts. 
Two isolated structures with ancient towers are 
known as the castles of ** Blackbeard " and " Blue- 
beard " ; but, notwithstanding the romantic sugges- 
tion of pirate chiefs, they are known to have been 
built by the government about the year 1700. The 
port is securely sheltered from the winds of the 
north and east, but hurricanes are wont to come 
from the south, and in 18 19 one got in here and 
stranded all the vessels in the harbour and did much 
mischief. One almost equally destructive forced an 
entrance in 1837, and another in 1867. 

The buccaneers and pirates did not fail to find 
this sheltered bay and use it as a refuge and a lurk- 
ing-place, and Dutch and English settlers followed 
in their wake, the former in 1657 and the latter in 
1667 ; but in 167 1 the Danish West India and Guinea 
Company took possession and set up a trading sta- 
tion. It ranked next to Port Royal, Jamaica, in the 
slave trade. It soon passed into the hands of the 
" Company," of which the Elector of Brandenburg 
was the director. It was maintained as neutral 
ground, and French refugees settled upon it after 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. About the 



THE VIRGINS AND THE DANISH ISLANDS 297 

middle of the last century the King of Denmark 
took direction of the affairs of the trading company 
and made a national possession of the island. The 
port was kept free to all nations; and at times it 
afforded the only place of interchange between the 
West Indies and Europe. 

In fact, through the wars and contentions of two 
centuries St. Thomas profited by its advantage of 
neutrality. It had been a trading-place for buc- 
caneers and smugglers and slavers; and then when 
England and France and Holland were fighting 
and destroying each other's commerce, it picked 
up trade with all the belligerents and with the 
Spanish colonies which they were harrying. There 
was little occasion for tilling the soil. It was 
only necessary to take toll on the exchanges that 
constantly went on at the wharves. Through the 
revolutions by which Spain lost her colonies St. 
Thomas also profited, and when these commotions 
were over it found itself in the pathway of com- 
merce not only from Europe to the West Indies and 
the old " Spanish main," but from the United 
States to Brazil, and it became a harbour for refuge, 
for repairs, and for coaling, though it became rela- 
tively of less importance than in the old days of sail- 
ing ships. There is a marine railway and a floating 
dock two hundred and fifty feet long, completed in 
1875, and all the appliances of a convenient port of 
call. 

The prevailing language at St. Thomas is Eng- 
lish, though it is a place of various nationalities 
and many tongues, and the negroes have a mixed 



298 THE WEST INDIES 

patois of their own. It swarms with grinning and 
chattering blacks, and the " 'longshore " work is 
largely done by women, who coal steamers by 
marching in procession with baskets on their heads. 
The streets are neat and well kept, and alive with 
fruit vendors ; the place is healthy and comfortable, 
and is connected with the world by many lines of 
steamers and by telegraph. There is a government 
college and a Roman Catholic college in Charlotte 
Amalia, and some Moravian schools. About one 
third of the people are classified as Roman Catho- 
lics, and the English Church and the Wesleyans are 
represented in the population as well as the Mora- 
vians. There is a public library and reading-room 
and two hospitals, besides the quarantine station on 
Light-House Point. Little evidence of the State 
of Denmark is seen about the place except the small 
garrison and its flag, and Denmark has long been 
willing to part with it. Secretary Seward bought 
it for the United States in 1866 for $5,000,000, but 
Congress refused to ratify the bargain, to the great 
disgust of the Danish king and the mortification of 
many Americans. 

St. John is of small account. It has a little town 
of the same name on the north coast, and hardly 
more than 1000 inhabitants all told, who raise a 
little sugar and coffee and the fruit and vegetables 
whereby they live. It is near Tortola and off the 
beaten track of commerce, but on its eastern side is 
a good harbour of refuge from the prowling hurri- 
cane, little resorted to except by fishing vessels. 
The English, with characteristic facility in pervert- 



THE VIRGINS AND THE DANISH ISLANDS 299 

ing foreign names, called this harbour " Crawl Bay," 
though the Spanish designation was Corral, meaning 
an inclosure. The island came into the possession 
of Denmark by purchase as a bargain, but proved to 
be of little value. 

Santa Cruz, which stands isolated about forty 
miles south of St. Thomas, and is rather an outpost, 
by submarine attachment, of the Caribbean range of 
islands than an appurtenance of the Virgin group, 
was also profaned by the presence of the buccaneers. 
It was afterwards in charge of the Knights of Malta, 
but passed from them to the possession of France, 
and was sold to Denmark in 1733 for $150,000. 
The island is about twenty-five miles long and five 
or six miles wide, extending east and west. Parallel 
to the coast in the western part is a ridge which 
culminates in Mount Eagle, 1300 feet high. The 
eastern part is hilly and the central undulating, and 
on the south shore there are some flat marshy spaces 
with lagoons of brackish water. Of the 5 1, 168 acres 
of land, all but about 4000 acres is tillable, and in 
former times fully half of this was covered with sugar 
plantations. Since the abolition of slavery and the 
depression of the cane-sugar interest, it has greatly 
languished in comparison with the flourishing days 
of yore, when its sugar, molasses, and rum figured 
conspicuously in the markets of the world. Rum 
is in fact what chiefly makes the name of Santa Cruz 
familiar. 

The soil of the island is extremely fertile and cap- 
able of a great variety of products; its climate is 
healthy for the tropics, and in natural attractions it 



300 THE WEST INDIES 

is one of the most charming of the West Indies ; but 
it is cut off from the world except for trade through 
St. Thomas, and white settlers do not flock to it. 
The population of 25,000 consists mostly of negroes, 
and the plantation owners are largely Englishmen, 
whose language prevails in the island. The capital 
is Christianstaed, at the head of an inlet on the north 
coast which admits vessels of moderate draught. Its 
white, pink, and yellow houses, with red or purple 
tiles, give it a picturesque appearance from the out- 
side, but on close inspection they seem rather shabby 
and dirty. The streets are unpaved, and the cabins 
of the negroes are mostly flimsy structures, but in 
the country around there are good roads lined with 
palm, tamarind, and mango trees, and leading 
through luxuriant gardens and plantations out to 
the wooded heights. The English name of the 
town is Basin, or Bassin, which seems to be a per- 
version of Basse End. 

The only other place of importance is Frederick- 
staed on the west coast, popularly called " West 
End." It is on an open roadstead and accessible 
only to small craft ; but it is also in the foreground 
of rich plantations and verdant and flowery fields. 
This place was attacked and burned at the time of 
the insurrection of blacks in 1878, which was caused 
by the hard conditions under which they were bound 
to labour by yearly contracts after emancipation. 
The trade of Santa Cruz, always confined to sugar, 
molasses, and rum, has declined, and it is much less 
flourishing than formerly. The governor of the 
Danish colony resides at Christianstaed half the 



THE VIRGINS AND THE DANISH ISLANDS 30I 

year and at St. Thomas the other half, and his 
presence and that of two small garrisons, one at 
Basse End and the other at West End, are about 
the only reminders of the Danish mother country. 




CHAPTER XXX 

ANGUILLA, ST. MARTIN, ST. BARTHOLOMEW, 
BARBUDA, ANTIGUA 

BETWEEN the broad, deep channel that sepa- 
rates the submarine plateau of the Greater 
Antilles and The Virgins from the submerged mount- 
ain system whose crests appear in the double line of 
the Caribbees, and the clear passage of forty miles 
which crosses that system north of Guadaloupe, lies 
an irregular group of a dozen inhabited and culti- 
vated islands divided in ownership between Great 
Britain, France, and Holland. Part of them are in 
the inner range of igneous and volcanic peaks, which 
must have sprung originally from a vast rift in the 
earth's crust far below the present surface of the 
water. The others are in the outer and less elevated 
line of calcareous and coralline structures, built upon 
a ridge which remained below the level at which the 
waters finally came to rest. The latter begin farther 
to the north than the others, and the first in the 
series after the barren and wind-swept " Sombrero " 
and " The Dogs," whose only marketable products 
are guano and phosphate of lime, is Anguilla. 

302 



ANGUILLA AN'D ST. MARTIN 303 

This name means " snake," and is supposed to be 
due to the appearance of the long, narrow, low-lying 
strip of land weltering in the sea ; but it is generally 
attributed to Herrera, the earliest historian of the 
Spanish- American colonies, who really called the 
island Aguila, or " Eagle." It is about sixteen 
miles long and varies from half a mile to three miles 
in width. It is a breezy, healthy piece of ground, 
but its 2500 people are mostly negroes engaged in 
breeding cattle and ponies, and raising small crops 
of Indian corn and tobacco, though salt and phos- 
phate of lime figure among its meagre exports. 
These reach a market at St. Thomas. There is 
another and smaller strip running off to the north- 
east, called Anguilletta, or the " Snakelet." An- 
guilla belongs to the presidency of St. Christopher- 
Nevis, and a stipendiary magistrate represents 
public authority among its peaceable inhabitants. 

Barely five miles south of this little English 
island, across a shallow channel, is St. Martin, the 
only land in the Antilles divided in its allegiance 
between two European powers. It has an area of 
thirty square miles and a population of nearly 8000. 
About three fifths both of area and of people are 
French and two fifths Dutch, though in point of fact 
a large proportion of the settlers were English, and 
their language still prevails. The division between 
France and the Netherlands was peaceably made in 
1648, and has remained undisturbed through all 
subsequent commotions. The French part is in the 
north, and there is a considerable elevation there, 
rising to 1920 feet in Paradise Peak. There are 



304 THE WEST INDIES 

some lower summits to the south of this, and then 
a gradual slope to the coast. On the west is a low 
peninsula called the Basses-Terres, or lowlands, con- 
nected with the shore by a sandy isthmus with 
Simpson's Lagoon in the middle of it. On the east- 
ern and southern coasts are narrow inlets which run 
far inland ; and near the middle of the south shore 
is Grand Bay, at the head of which lies the Dutch 
town of Philipsburg. Here is Fort William and the 
centre of such authority as is exercised in behalf of 
the colony of Curasao, of which this is a remote de- 
pendency. The French capital is Marigot on the 
west side just north of Basses-Terres, where there is 
a well sheltered port. St. Martin used to be much 
given to sugar raising, but since that became un- 
profitable its principal salable products have been 
provisions and salt. It raises fruits and vegetables 
and some cattle, and to the north of Philipsburg is 
a large " salt pan," worked by a French and Dutch 
company. 

A little to the south-east of St. Martin is the 
French island of St. Bartholomew, familiarly called 
" St. Bart," and, like the French part of St. Martin, 
a dependency of the colony of Guadeloupe. It is a 
crescent, only six miles long from east to west, and 
three miles across in its widest part, and its popula- 
tion of less than 3000 consists mostly of negroes. 
Though the original possessors were French, the 
English language is chiefly spoken now. The island 
was first settled in 1648, when the French divided 
St. Martin with the Dutch ; but when the ambitious 
Gustavus was trying the expansion and colonising 



ST. BARTHOLOMEW AND BARBUDA 3O5 

policy in 1784, it was ceded to Sweden. That ac- 
counts for the name of the present capital, Gustavia, 
and of Fort Gustave, which are on the western side 
of the island, where there is a sheltered harbour that 
will admit vessels of eight or ten feet draught. In 
1877, France bought the island back for 275,000 
francs. The shores are much indented and the sur- 
face irregular, rising into a limestone ridge in the 
interior about 1000 feet high. There are no streams 
or springs, and the hilltops are rather barren, but 
the valleys are fertile and yield good crops of sugar, 
cotton, tobacco, and fruits, when cultivated; but 
the foreign trade is slight and absorbed in that of 
Guadeloupe. 

St. Bartholomew is at the end of a submarine 
bank, and across a broad expanse of deep water to 
the south of east, forty miles away, lies Barbuda, 
which belongs to the presidency of Antigua, from 
which island it is separated by a stretch of thirty 
miles of shallow water. It is at the end of a sub- 
marine peninsula reaching northward from the larger 
island. While Barbuda is rated as a dependency of 
the Leeward Islands colony, it is private property, 
having been granted to the Codrington family about 
1680. It remained in the family until a recent 
period, when it was purchased by some private cap- 
italists, who have only to keep up the old obligation 
of presenting a fat sheep to the governor when he 
deigns to make a visit to the vassal of his sovereign. 
This may be commuted to a goodly buck or green 
turtle, or perhaps to anything satisfactory to the 
visiting official. It is a mere token of allegiance. 



306 THE WEST INDIES 

The fact of this private ownership and the some- 
what isolated position of Barbuda, as well as its lack 
of harbours, have prevented its industrial develop- 
ment. It is ten miles long by eight wide, low-lying, 
and beset with reefs; but though there is a lack of 
springs and of running water, the land is fertile and 
would produce fine crops of the staples of sugar, 
cotton, and tobacco, as well as indigo, fruits, and 
vegetables. But it is little cultivated, and the en- 
tire population is Httle more than lOCX), mostly 
connexions and dependents of the proprietors. 
Much of the land is thickly wooded and in the na- 
ture of game preserves. This is one of the few 
islands in which the whites outnumber the blacks, 
but that is doubtless because there has been no 
systematic employment of labour in the cultivation 
of land or in trade, of which there is practically 
none. Sir William Codrington gave a church and 
school to the little community in 1843. 

Antigua, which is at the southern end of this 
outer line of islands and between forty and fifty 
miles from Guadeloupe, is the centre of British 
authority in the Leeward Islands. The size of 
the island is variously stated by different authori- 
ties, but is perhaps twenty-five miles by fifteen. It 
is approximately oval, with its longest axis nearly 
east and west. The highest land is in the south- 
west, and though the elevation nowhere attains 
1500 feet, there are steep cliffs and picturesque 
ravines, festooned with rank vegetation. This 
limestone region would make a tolerable stronghold 
at need. The heights are wooded, and the general 



ANTIGUA 307 

surface of the island is varied with hill and dale and 
covered with verdure, though subject to occasional 
drought. The formation is calcareous, with marine 
and fresh-water deposits in which animal and vege- 
table remains appear. There are no surface streams, 
and the few springs are brackish, so that the water 
supply has to be stored from the direct rainfall. In 
1789, there was a prolonged drought which caused 
the death of many cattle and general distress. Now 
reservoirs are more liberally supplied, the capital 
having one which will hold 600,000 gallons. Not- 
withstanding the liability to drought, the soil is fer- 
tile and in former times there were flourishing sugar 
plantations. These have languished of late, and 
little has been done to fill their place, though the 
cultivation of fruit has been increased, and special 
attention is given to pineapples. 

Notwithstanding the generally calcareous and 
coralline character of this island, there is evidence 
in English Harbour, on the south coast, of the 
igneous and volcanic formation that belongs partic- 
ularly to the inner line of Caribbees, which is broken 
here with a gap of forty miles from Montserrat to 
Guadeloupe. This harbour is in fact formed by a 
group of low craters which have been invaded and 
swamped by the ocean. Although there is a capa- 
cious and sheltered port at this place, it has been so 
long used for a naval station, barracks, dockyard, 
and arsenal, that trade has kept away. The com- 
mercial port is on the north side of the island, where 
the capital of the colony, St. John, stands on an 
eminence at the head of a bay, affording good 



308 THE WEST INDIES 

anchorage for vessels of twelve to fourteen feet 
draught. St. John has a population of about i6,- 
000, which is probably half that of the entire island. 
It is the seat of government of the Leeward 
Islands colony, as well as the Antigua presidency, 
and has such pubHc buildings as the colony affords. 
It is a well built town with stone houses and a fine 
cathedral with two yellow towers. The island is 
divided into six parishes, each with its town or vil- 
lage and its church and chapel. With some varia- 
tion of industries it might still be a thriving place, 
but it has long been declining, because wholly de- 
voted to sugar in slavery times. The population at 
the time of emancipation in 1834 was 2000 whites 
and 33,000 negroes. Since then the whites have 
diminished in number and the blacks increased, while 
the old plantation life has decayed. 

As Columbus came up the islands on that second 
voyage he christened this one for Santa Maria la 
Antigua, with whose fane in Valladolid he was 
familiar. It was in that same church that his mortal 
remains were first deposited. In 1520, a Spaniard 
named Serrano made an effort to colonise the island, 
but the Caribs objected so strenuously that he had 
to desist. Even when that persistent English colo- 
niser. Sir Thomas Warner, first settled here in 1632, 
he had some desperate fights with the Caribs, who 
were not wont, like the Arawaks, to give up their 
land without a struggle. There is a romantic story 
of an English governor whose wife was stolen by a 
Carib chief and carried off to Dominica, and who 
after recovering her went insane with jealousy. The 



ANTIGUA 



309 



island was granted to Lord Willoughby after the 
restoration, but the French seized it at about 
the same time. It was definitely conceded to Great 
Britain by the treaty of Breda in 1667. After the 
plantation system was well under way there was a 
serious uprising of the negro slaves in 1736, which 
was put down with a relentless severity that was re- 
garded as necessary to the safety of the small white 
population. Earthquakes and hurricanes have 
troubled the island at times. There was a violent 
shaking in 1833 and a furious blowing in 1835, and 
in 1 841 the city of St. John was wellnigh destroyed 
by fire. 




CHAPTER XXXI 

SABA, ST. EUSTATIUS, ST. CHRISTOPHER, NEVIS, 
MONTSERRAT 

AT the head of the line of volcanic peaks that 
come up out of the depths of the ocean are 
the two little Dutch islands of Saba and St. Eusta- 
tius, which are dependencies of far-off Cura9ao. 
The former is scarcely more than a volcanic cone, 
rising sheer out of the waves 2800 feet, but the in- 
ternal fires long since went out. It is dead, and in 
an old crater on the western side, eight hundred feet 
above the shore, is the little town of Bottom. As 
one lands by a small boat on the rocky beach, and 
climbs the steep path appropriately called the " lad- 
der," up which human freight-carriers go with loads 
on their heads, he imagines that " Top " would be 
a better name. But the crumbling of the sides and 
the fining up of the depths of what was once a fiery 
vent from the bowels of the earth has made the 
" bottom " of a depression the dwelling-place of the 
little Dutch community. The rim of the Titanic 
cup still surrounds it, and it is through a break in 
this that it is reached from the steep acclivity. 
There is another break on the opposite side, through 

310 



ST. EUSTATIUS 3II 

which one may wander over what there is of the 
island besides the craggy mountain top, but in this 
Bottom are concentrated practically all the inhabit- 
ants, barely 2000, of whom perhaps one third are 
negroes. The Dutch families are rosy-faced and 
cheerful folk, who speak English and build the best 
boats in all the islands, though they have no timber 
and no facilities for navigation. 

St. Eustatius is larger, and its dead volcanoes are 
not so tall. The culminating peak is about 2000 
feet above the sea-level, but it is much damaged by 
time. It has crumbled away on the northern side 
so as to exhibit a yawning gap, and the central 
crater, called the '* punch-bowl," is overgrown with 
dense vegetation, and has become the lurking- 
place of reptiles and gruesome insects. From the 
towering mass slope peaceful hills and fertile valleys 
over a limited area toward the sea. On the west 
side is Orangetown, situated on an open roadstead, 
and giving access to the interior gorges and dells, 
which are often visited by excursion parties from 
St. Kitt's, where erst the smuggler, the buccaneer, 
and the pirate found refuge from pursuit, or con- 
cealment for ill-gotten commodities. St. Eustatius 
is not what it was in the . days when there was vast 
profit in illicit trade or gain in Dutch neutrality 
while France and England fought over the posses- 
sions of Spain. It has no such stirring times as 
when Rodney seized its port, confiscated the wealth 
of its traders, and sold out their merchandise under 
the hammer. Now it is little more than a land of 
marvels for the occasional visitor. Its population is 



312 THE WEST INDIES 

less than 3000, and only yams and sweet potatoes 
figure in the statistics of its exports. 

St. Christopher, or St. Kitt's, as the English are 
fond of caUing it, has a great deal of history in pro- 
portion to its size. It extends from north-west to 
south-east in the form of a rude oval, about thirteen 
miles long by six wide ; but a narrow handle, like 
that of a spoon, stretches ten or twelve miles farther, 
ending with a circular head having a lagoon in the 
middle like a crest or monogram. The entire area is 
given as sixty-five square miles. Whether Columbus 
was so delighted with its aspect when he first came 
upon it that he favoured it with the name of his 
own special saint, or bestowed that appellation on 
account of the fancied appearance of a big mountain 
carrying a little one on its back, does not greatly 
matter. The Caribs, who had the best right to 
name it, called it Liamuiga, meaning ** fertile," 
which exhibits a sounder principle in christening. 
The Spaniards found it expedient not to disturb 
the Caribs, but when the English and French came 
with colonising intent, St. Christopher was the first 
spot upon which they settled, and they quarrelled 
over it for the best part of two centuries. Sir 
Thomas Warner and his associates landed on the 
verdant isle overlooked by its grim mountain top in 
1623, and were in so much peril when the piratical 
Esnambuc arrived some months later, with his ships 
disabled in a tussle with a Spanish galleon, that they 
welcomed French co-operation in wresting the land 
from the natives. It required some desperate fight- 
ing, but they were all killed or driven out, and the 



ST. CHRISTOPHER 313 

English took the uplands in the middle, while the 
French occupied both ends by the sea. It is said 
that they established an indisputable boundary by 
means of a cactus hedge. 

They did not dwell long in peace. In 1629, along 
came Don Frederic de Toledo, a Spanish admiral, — 
all Spanish naval officers of consequence then, as 
now, were admirals, — and scattered them, some to 
betake themselves to the buccaneers of Tortuga, 
and some to return when the Spaniard left the island 
again unoccupied. French and English resumed 
their relations until their mother countries were at 
war, and then the English, under Governor Watts 
and Colonel Morgan, in 1666, with the help of some 
settlers in Nevis, undertook to drive the French out. 
General de la Salle came to the rescue of the latter, 
who turned the tables and drove the English out ; 
but the peace of Breda in 1667 restored the status 
quo. When England and Holland were united 
against France, after 1688, there was another fight in 
St. Kitt's. The French expelled the English in 1689, 
and they got back the next year, and again the peace 
of Ryswick in 1.697 restored the old division ; but 
that of Utrecht in 171 3 gave the whole island to 
Great Britain. After that there was more fighting, 
and the French got temporary possession in 1782, 
St. Kitt's being one of the islands rescued by Rod- 
ney's great victory over De Grasse. Since then the 
English sway has been undisputed. 

The island's natural aspect and recent condition 
are as interesting as its history. The French called 
their two ends Capesterre and Basseterre, — freely 



314 THE WEST INDIES 

interpreted " highland " and *' lowland " ; and Basse- 
Terre is still the name of the capital, which the Eng- 
lish perversely call " Bar Star," while retaining the 
French orthography. It is on a sheltered bay on 
the west side, near where the spoon handle starts 
toward Nevis, and is quite picturesque with its white 
houses and red roofs, its ranks of cocoanut and 
cabbage palms, its groves of mango and orange, its 
gardens of various fruits and flowers spreading up 
the slopes. In the days when sugar plantations 
were enriching their owners, — the good old days 
before emancipation and beet-root subsidies, — there 
was a broad belt of fields of waving cane on the 
slopes all around the island, with the tall chimneys 
of the mills sticking up here and there. The belt of 
fertile field is still there, but not flourishing as of 
yore, and at the foot of the slopes all around the 
island is a fine road lined with tropical trees, shrubs, 
and varied vegetation. 

Out of the verdant slopes back of Basse-Terre rises 
Monkey Hill, and behind the sharp ridge towers the 
awful form of Mount Misery, 4330 feet high. As a. 
side elevation near the west coast, less than eight 
hundred feet high, is Brimstone Hill, once crowned 
with a citadel, and called the " Gibraltar of the West 
Indies." Mount Misery is said to have been so 
named from its occasional habit of sending down 
floods and torrents which swept away houses and 
overwhelmed plantations. It was peculiarly profuse 
and reckless with one of these in 1880. This hoary 
old volcano has lost the vigour of its early days and 
has been very quiet for a century or two ; but there 



ST. CHRISTOPHER AND NEVIS 



315 



is a crater 1000 feet deep, which in the wet season 
forms a dismal lake fringed with palm trees; and 
there are fissures through which sulphurous gases 
still issue. 

The population of St. Christopher is something 
less than 30,000, and has not been increasing of late 
except among the blacks. There is but a small 
white element, descendants and representatives of 
the old landowners, and Portuguese traders from 
the Azores. Sugar was the one great staple, and it 
has not been replaced by anything greatly profitable, 
for lack of enterprise. The negroes are not fond of 
working on the estates, and cannot get possession 
of small allotments of land to cultivate for them- 
selves, and the industrial condition is not satisfac- 
tory. Much fruit is grown, and it pervades the 
town of Basse-Terre, which contains the life of the 
island, with a mingling of shades of colour in com- 
plexion and dress as picturesque as that of the houses 
and gardens. 

Nevis, as the English have always called it, think- 
ing perhaps of Ben Nevis, though Columbus rever- 
ently named it Nieves for ** Our Lady of Snows " in 
Spain, is hardly more than a pendant to St. Kitt's 
geographically, as it is politically. The passage 
between, called " The Narrows," is barely two 
miles across. Nevis is about seven miles long by 
six wide, and is mostly occupied by a volcanic cone 
3460 feet high, flanked on either side by a lower 
summit. The fertile land, which used to be covered 
with rich plantations, is a mere margin around this 
-mountain mass, and is no longer a flourishing girdle 



3l6 THE WEST INDIES 

of sugar-cane. Of the whole area of 24,640 acres, 
only about 6000 can be cultivated, and that mostly 
on steep slopes, which, however, are extremely pro- 
ductive like all the ancient lava soil. Sugar and 
molasses were the only products for export, and 
since they became unprofitable the little island has 
gone into a decline. 

Its population numbers a few thousand, mostly 
negroes and ** coloured " now; and Charlestown is 
a decaying village on the open roadstead in the 
south-west. Near by are warm sulphur springs where 
there used to be fine baths, making it a watering- 
place for visitors from far and near ; and there was 
genteel society in Charlestown in the old times. 
We must not forget that here was the birthplace of 
Alexander Hamilton, who went to the United States 
in his youth to become one of the leading statesmen 
of the infant republic ; and it is worth while recalling 
again that Horatio Nelson was here captivated by 
the charming widow Fanny Nisbet, and was married 
to her at the old Fig Tree Church on the road out 
of town in 1787. It is not so pleasing to remember 
how, when he became a famous admiral, he wrung 
the heart of the faithful wife, lured away by the 
brazen attractions of that aristocratic huzzy, Lady 
Hamilton. 

We may note on our way to Montserrat that the 
little islet of Redonda has a few inhabitants and 
belongs to the presidency of Antigua. The bold, 
steep shores and jagged heights of Montserrat re- 
minded Columbus of the old Catalonian monastery, 
where Ignatius Loyola " promoted " the Society of 
Jesus. Hence its name. It is thirty miles to the 



MONTSERRA T 3 1 7 

north of west from Antigua, so that the volcanic 
range of this island group is shorter at both ends 
than the calcareous bulwark to the east. The island 
is nearly oval, twelve miles long and eight miles 
wide at the most, and two thirds of its area is taken 
up by volcanic mountains, which give slight evidence 
of their wonted fires in puffs of sulphurous vapour 
from La Soufriere. The culminating peak of the 
sierra is 3000 feet above the sea, and some of the 
heights are inaccessible on account of sheer preci- 
pices and impassable chasms. The eastern slopes 
are steep and covered with forests, containing valu- 
able timber, but those of the west are gentler, and 
in former times were covered with plantations, 
mostly of sugar-cane. 

A bit of enterprise in Montserrat has shown that 
some things can be done as well as others. Some 
thrifty Quakers back in the fifties began raising 
limes and extracting the juice, and the new in- 
dustry has grown until it supplies the English 
market with lime juice and citric acid. There are 
large groves of lime trees, but there are also fields 
of cotton and of arrowroot, and this is one of 
the most densely peopled and prosperous of all 
the islands, though that only signifies some 10,- 
000 people, for the habitable area is small. Its one 
town is Plymouth in the south-west, neatly built 
and thriving, but with hardly two hundred white 
residents. There is no harbour, and the place is 
only visited by coasting vessels from St. John or 
Basse-Terre. The climate is mild and healthful and 
the scenery picturesque, and Montserrat has been 
called the " Montpelier of the West." 



CHAPTER XXXII 

GUADELOUPE 

THE three relatively large islands which constitute 
the middle links of the great Caribbean chain 
are distinctively French, though the middle one of 
the three has been in the possession of Great Britain 
for more than a hundred years, with a short inter- 
ruption early in the present century, and is now 
a member of her Leeward Islands colony. The 
largest and most northerly, Guadeloupe, marks the 
convergence, almost the coalescence, of the great 
igneous range, with its dead or slumbering volcanoes, 
and the calcareous ridge that forms the external 
barrier on the ocean side. In fact, it consists of two 
islands lying side by side and separated by a pass- 
age one hundred feet wide where they come nearest 
to a junction, — one of them rugged and mountain- 
ous, with exhausted and dilapidated craters here and 
there, the other flat, with marshy spots, and still 
wrought upon by the coral builders. 

By a curious freak of nomenclature, the one that 
is full of mountain peaks and ridges and of lofty up- 
lands is called Basse-Terre ; and the really lowland 
segment, though smaller in area, is called Grande- 

318 



GUADELOUPE 319 

Terre. But the French had a general way of calh'ng 
the upper end or the windward side of islands, in the 
Caribbees, " Capesterre, " or headland, and the lee- 
ward side, which was generally lower, " Basseterre," 
or lowland. The latter term seems to have been 
first applied to the lower part of what may be con- 
sidered Guadeloupe proper, where the town of Basse- 
Terre now is, and afterwards extended to the whole, 
without reference to the character of the twin island 
on the east, which came to be called Grande-Terre, 
because it had a larger area that was available for 
cultivation. 

In the north-west the highest peak is Grosse Mon- 
tagne, 2370 feet, from which jagged ridges radiate 
in different directions. Not far from the middle of 
the west coast is Deux Mamelles, 2540 feet high, and 
toward the south the great cone of La Soufriere, 
which reaches an elevation of 4900 feet. The crest 
of the latter rises from a plain which was an ancient 
crater, and there are other vestiges of volcanic action 
in remote ages besides the comparatively modern 
rupture. Not only are there fiUed-up craters and 
deposits of sulphur, but gases and sulphurous va- 
pours still issue at times from the crevices, while 
near the foot of the Mamelles, on the very verge of 
the sea, are the Puits Bouillants, where vapours puff 
out of the sand and bubble up from the water. 
There is a sinuous ridge throughout the length of 
the island, and at the southern extremity a peak 
called Caraibe rises 2300 feet. 

Among the mountain peaks and ridges are many 
wild and verdurous gorges, and the upland valleys 



320 THE WEST INDIES 

slope in fertile expanse toward the coast. The lower 
lands have all the rich fertility and luxuriant vegeta- 
tion of the other volcanic isles, for this section of 
Guadeloupe is watered by many streams. Considera- 
ble stretches are well cultivated, the lower levels 
being covered with sugar plantations and the hills 
with coffee gardens, while tobacco, cotton, and 
arrowroot are raised to some extent, and cattle farms 
are scattered among the hills. The natural growths 
are those common to this range of islands, a variety 
of palms, and the" palmiste" with its spreading top, 
mangoes, and tamarinds, the dark green breadfruit 
tree, various tropical fruits, and rank vines and ferns, 
— all the verdure and bloom of a land of eternal 
summer. There is little that is peculiar in the animal 
life, but the deadly fer-de-lance, or lance-head snake, 
is first encountered here on our southward course. 

The highest elevation on Grande-Terre is four 
hundred and fifty feet, and the whole section con- 
sists mainly of limestone and a conglomerate of sand 
and broken shells which contains vegetable and 
animal remains, including occasional Carib skele^ 
tons, too recent to be called fossils. This peculiar 
conglomerate is much used as a building stone, and 
is known as *' magonne de bon dieu." The bay be- 
tween the sections of Guadeloupe on the north is 
called the Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin, and that on the 
south the Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin; and the narrow 
passage between, which is about five miles long, is 
the Riviere Salee, or '' Salt River." Vessels drawing 
seven or eight feet of water can pass through it, but 
it could be readily improved into a serviceable chan- 



GUADELOUPE 32 1 

nel. Near its southern entrance, on the Grande- 
Terre side, is Pointe-a-Pitre, the chief port and the 
real commercial centre of Guadeloupe. It is access- 
ible by deep water from the sea, and has the ap- 
pliances of a genuine seaport. It contains great 
sugar-reducing works, the Usines Centrales, to 
which the planters bring their cane and sell it, in- 
stead of undertaking to make sugar as well as grow 
the raw material themselves. 

The capital and political centre is Basse-Terre on 
the south-west coast, and upon the heights of St. 
Claude is Camp Jacob, a health resort and place of 
summer residence, where the governor spends much 
of his time. On the eastern coast is Le Moule, 
whence considerable shipments of sugar are made, 
though it is an exposed roadstead. In the south- 
east is a place called Porte d'Enfer. 

Basse-Terre is about twenty-eight miles long by 
twelve to fifteen wide, while Grande-Terre, with 
less area, extends thirty-four miles from north- 
west to south-east, and twenty-two from north to 
south, being of irregular shape with a long pen- 
insula at the south-eastern extremity. The six 
hundred and more square miles credited to Guade- 
loupe include some outlying small islands to the 
east and south. While Columbus was coming from 
the east near the beginning of November, 1493, 
eager for the sight of land, the first discovered was 
called La Deseada, or the " Wished-for," which 
has been corrupted by the French to Desirade. 
This is of the same formation as Grande-Terre, but 
is higher, though containing only about ten square 



325 THE WEST INDIES 

miles of area. An island of sixty-five square miles 
nearly south of Grande-Terre and east of the lower 
point of Basse-Terre was named Marie Galante for 
the vessel commanded by Columbus. It rises in a 
succession of terraces to an elevation of six hundred 
and seventy-five feet on the eastern side, and has a 
circuit of fifty miles. It has a poorly sheltered har- 
bour called Grand Bourg. A little farther west a 
cluster of islets, made from broken craters and lava 
heaps, were called Los Santos, ** The Saints," be- 
cause first seen on All-Hallows. The highest is 
named Le Chameau, and rises to looo feet or more, 
with fortifications on the top. In fact," The Saints " 
have been converted into a military and naval station 
and armed for the defence of the colony, and they 
have * ' in their midst ' ' a deep basin specially adapted 
for the safety of naval vessels. This has been called 
" the Gibraltar of the Antilles." 

Columbus kept on his way up the eastern side of 
the large double island, which the natives called 
Curucueria, and made a landing. He named it 
Guadalupe, in honour of Santa Maria de Guada- 
lupe in Estramadura, and here he made his first 
acquaintance with the fierce Caribs. He was de- 
lighted with the land, but reported its people to be 
bloodthirsty pagans and cannibals. The warriors 
being mostly absent on some expedition, he rescued 
some female captives from the north, took a Carib 
or two along, and went his way. The Spaniards 
seemed to pay no more attention to this particular 
island, and in 1635 two French adventurers, named 
L' Olive and Duplessis, tried to take possession. 





>^ 




GUADELOUPE 323 

They had to give it up, but the French claim to the 
island began then and was maintained ever after. 
After a long struggle the Caribs were overcome, 
being partly slaughtered and partly transported to 
Dominica and St. Vincent. Slavery was introduced 
and sugar plantations grew up, while coffee came in 
somewhat later. 

The English made several attacks on the island 
during the wars, and in 1759 it was captured by 
Admiral Moore and General Harrington, but was 
restored by the treaty of 1763. It was one of the 
French possessions that fell into British hands with 
Rodney's victory in 1782, but again it was re- 
stored by the treaty of 1783. In 1794, the English, 
under Sir John Grey and John Jervis, took it, 
but the commissioner of the new French republic, 
Victor Hugues, declared the emancipation of slaves 
and turned the negroes against the invaders and 
drove them out. In 1802, Napoleon re-established 
slavery, which caused a bloody insurrection. The 
blacks fought desperately, and many killed them- 
selves rather than submit. Others were ruthlessly 
slaughtered, and many were transported. During 
the " Hundred Days " in 18 10, the English got 
possession once more, and held the island until after 
the peace of 18 14, but since then the French con- 
trol has been uninterrupted. Slavery was abolished 
in 1848, but was followed by a system of long-con- 
tract service. Latterly many of the blacks have 
become small landowners. La Soufriere has con- 
tributed one or two exciting incidents to the history 
of the island. As lately as 1797 it had an alarming 



324 THE WEST INDIES 

eruption which seriously disfigured the landscape, 
and in 1843 it went into convulsions which shook 
the whole island and did considerable damage, almost 
destroying the city of Pointe-a-Pitre. 

The latest authentic statistics of the population 
of Guadeloupe as a colony place it at 135,650, in- 
cluding 13,850 for Marie Galante, and 1400 for 
D^sirade. About three fourths of the people are 
classed as " blacks," and there are all shades of 
colour, though the white element has never been 
sufficiently large to reduce the African predomi- 
nance noticeably. The aspect of life in the towns 
is extremely picturesque, with light costumes and 
turbans of gay colours, and a cheerful appearance 
of thrift and comfort. While the foreign trade is 
chiefly in sugar and coffee, the local traffic in fish, 
vegetables, and fruits, mostly carried on by women, 
gives life and colour to the market-places. At first 
Guadeloupe was attached to the colony of Mar- 
tinique, but it has had a separate administration 
since 1775, and in 1837 the French municipal system 
was introduced. It is a department represented by 
one senator and two deputies in the French Corps 
Legislatif, and is divided into three arrondissements : 
Basse-Terre, Pointe-k-Pitre, and Marie Galante. 
There is a governor and council appointed by the 
home authorities, and a general council of thirty-six 
members elected from the communes to represent 
local interests and sentiment. The annual revenues 
of the colony amount to about $1,000,000. The 
aggregate of foreign trade is about 45,000,000 francs 
or $9,000,000 per year, divided almost equally be- 
tween imports and exports. 




CHAPTER XXXIII 



DOMINICA 



THE culminating height of the volcanic ridge 
whose peaks constitute the main line of the 
Caribbees is Mount Diablotin, 5340 feet high, in 
the northern part of the island of Dominica. That 
central island of the range is about twenty-five miles 
south of Guadeloupe and a little more than that 
north of Martinique. Its entire length from north 
to south is twenty-nine miles, and its width from 
twelve to sixteen, the greatest length being on the 
west side. A large part of its area is covered with 
mountains, which are clothed with dense forests and 
tropical vegetation of rank luxuriance; its shores 
are rocky and precipitous, with few indentations 
that can be used as landing-places. The only avail- 
able anchorages are on the west side at Prince 
Rupert's Bay in the north, where the town of Ports- 
mouth is situated, and at Roseau, the capital, 
farther south, where there is a practicable *' caren- 
age." The mountains are cleft with wild gorges 
and ravines, and there are many streams, which 
often fall in beautiful cascades over the precipices, 

325 



326 THE WEST INDIES 

or slip through deep dells covered with flowering 
vines and shrubs. There is valuable timber in the 
primeval woods, but little use is made of it. There 
are ancient craters among the mountains, and fre- 
quent sulphur cavities and boiling springs. One 
old chasm used to be known as the boiling lake, 
and was said to be three hundred feet deep, but a 
few years ago a landslide partly filled it up, spoiled 
the symmetry of its banks, and stopped its ebul- 
litions. 

A comparatively small part of the island's area of 
two hundred and ninety square miles is subject to 
cultivation, and much of that is stony, but the soil 
is very rich and produces all tropical plants and 
fruits in great abundance. The palms and fruit 
trees, the shrubs and flowering plants, so common 
in all these islands, flourish in Dominica, and it has 
several varieties peculiar to itself. The ceiba tree, 
though not its exclusive possession, is specially con- 
spicuous, with its trailing parasites and profusion of 
orchids; and tree ferns grow to a height of twenty 
or thirty feet. There are few quadrupeds, but in^ 
the woods a great variety of birds with bright plumes 
and musical notes are found. Wild bees swarm in 
the blooming wildernesses and store honey in the 
clefts of trees, which is stolen from them and sent 
into the markets of the world. Honey and wax are 
among the chief exports, though sugar and coffee 
are still sent abroad. 

In the old days the Dominican planters did not 
find their land so well adapted to sugar-cane as to 
coffee, and this was never one of the islands in 



DOMINICA 327 

A^hich great plantations flourished. Since the aboH- 
tion of slavery, it has been slow to adapt itself to 
new conditions, and has not been prosperous. Its 
climate on the west coast, which is alone accessible 
to commerce, is moist and hot, and of its 30,000 in- 
habitants few are white Europeans. There has been 
some cultivation of cacao and arrowroot, and of 
lemons and limes, and less reliance on the old 
** colonial produce," but labour conditions are not 
favourable, and there is less evidence of thrift and 
cheerful content than in the French islands, though 
the language and traditions here are French rather 
than English. Roseau, or Charlotte Town, is a neat 
and quiet place of 5000 people, but has an air of 
having seen better days. It has an old French 
cathedral, an English church, and a Wesleyan 
chapel, and there is a botanical garden and a public 
library. At Portsmouth, or Prince Rupert's, up by 
the foot of Mount Diablotin, there is a better har- 
bour and more encouragement for foreign commerce, 
of which the island has comparatively little, though 
capable of producing many things for which there is 
a steady demand. 

After passing La Deseacia, Marie Galante, and The 
Saints, Columbus bore down toward the verdant land 
that seemed to rise out of the water to the south, 
but, finding a rock-bound coast and no good landing- 
place, he turned back. As it was Sunday, he called 
that rugged island Dominica, and proceeded to 
Guadeloupe. The Carib possessors were left in 
peace until 1627, when a few Englishmen, presum- 
ing on that lavish gift of King Charles to the Earl 



328 THE WEST INDIES 

of Carlisle, tried to take possession. They were 
vigorously repelled, and after the French had begun 
to settle the neighbouring islands, they too made 
some unsuccessful ventures upon this. By the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Great Britain and 
France agreed to leave this island to the Caribs as a 
sort of neutral ground, but, as it was convenient to 
the French from Guadeloupe and Martinique, they 
persisted in making encroachments upon it, and at 
the beginning of the war of 1 756-1 763 the English 
captured it as part of the enemy's territory. 

At the end of the war Great Britain was confirmed 
in possession, and appointed a commission to dispose 
of land to colonists, permitting the French settlers 
to remain on taking the oath of allegiance and paying 
a moderate quit-rent. In 1778, the French from 
Martinique attacked the island, and with the help 
of these same settlers forced it to capitulate, but it 
was recovered by Rodney, and the title was again 
conceded by the treaty of 1783. In 1805, General 
La Grange attacked Roseau and compelled a sur- 
render of the town, which was burned ; but the gov- 
ernor. Sir George Prevost, succeeded in defending 
the island, and the Frenchmen gave up the attempt 
to hold it. In 18 13-14, there was a raid of fugitive 
blacks from the mountains, and Governor Ainslie 
adopted a policy of extermination for the fugitives, 
killing everyone caught and offering a reward for 
everyone hunted down and slain. He was recalled 
to explain his inhuman conduct, but he carried 
home a testimonial to his clemency and humanity, 
signed by one hundred and sixty citizens of Roseau, 



DOMINICA 



329 



with the rector of the English church at the head of 
the list. There is still a remnant of Caribs much 
adulterated with negro blood within the confines of 
a reservation on the eastern side of Dominica. 




CHAPTER XXXIV 

MARTINIQUE 

PERHAPS the most interesting island in the 
most attractive archipelago of all this world is 
that in which the French ardour of soul is com- 
mingled in the highest degree with the native blood 
of the tropics. Martinique is about thirty miles due 
south across the blue Caribbean waters from Domin-* 
ica. Columbus made its discovery on his last voyage 
in 1502, but if he tried to fix a saint's name upon it, 
it did not stick. The native Caribs called it Ma- 
diana, or, some say, Matinina, and, whichever it 
was, the present name is a French corruption of it.' 
The English navigators used to call it Martinico. 

The island has the same general characteristics as 
its nearest neighbours, with some peculiarities of its 
own. Its extreme length is about forty-five miles 
from north-west to south-east, and the main part of 
it is in shape an oval with rough edges, its greatest 
width being fifteen miles. At the lower end of this 
main part, the old Fort Royal Bay — since the 
French Revolution Fort de France Bay — cuts in so 
deep as to come within six miles of meeting the in- 

330 



MARTINIQUE 33 1 

lets of Le Robert and Le Francois on the other side. 
Below this huge gash, which is thickly plastered 
with mangrove swamps, is another expanse of 
mountainous territory to the south terminating in 
the Morne du Diamant. The whole area of near 
four hundred square miles is mountainous, the lofti- 
est height being Mount Pelee, 4450 feet, in the 
north-west, near the foot of whose western slope on 
the coast is the bay upon which St. Pierre is built. 
Farther south, midway of the oval, are the three 
crests of Courbet, and all along the mighty ridge are 
black and ragged cones of old volcanoes. These 
slumbering monsters cannot yet be reckoned as 
absolutely harmless, for in 1851, after a century of 
seeming quietude, Mount Pelee broke out with a 
dangerous eruption. 

In the section south of the deep bay there are 
two less elevated and more irregular ridges, one 
running south-east and terminating in the Piton 
Vauclin, and the other extending westward and 
presenting to view on the coast Mounts Caraibe 
and Constant. All the east coast is notched with 
inlets and fringed with reefs, showing how the em- 
broidery of the tireless polyp still goes on. The 
mountainous interior is torn and gashed with the 
ancient throes of volcano and earthquake, and there 
are perpendicular scarps, deep clefts and gorges, 
black holes filled with water, and swift torrents 
dashing over precipices and falling into caverns; 
but over all this ravage of the primal ages the soak- 
ing rains and fervid sun of the tropic zone have 
wrought upon the rich lava soil a robe of verdure 



332 THE WEST INDIES 

and of bloom which covers the ghastly disfigurement 
with surpassing beauty. 

To name the trees and plants of Martinique and 
to speak of the animal life of its woods and waters 
is hardly more than repetition of what has been said 
of Guadeloupe and Dominica. It has its great ceiba 
trees with their hanging vines and orchids, the 
graceful columns of the palm with tufted crown or 
spreading umbrella-like shade, the lithe bamboo, the 
round, dark top of the breadfruit tree, the orange 
groves, the waving cane fields — 

" The glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world." 

In these woods and glens and on these rocky 
shores the fierce Carib was allowed to remain undis- 
turbed until that adventurous Norman captain, 
Esnambuc, came down from St. Christopher in 
1635 and founded St. Pierre at the very foot of the 
frowning peak of Pelee. It was a long struggle 
with the resisting natives, but forty years later 
France took up the colony and turned it over to a. 
chartered company as part of the royal domain. 
The Caribs were killed, driven off, or transported, 
the hapless negro and the sugar-cane were brought 
in. Coffee was introduced here first of all in 1726, 
and the plantation system, that made a few families 
rich from the blood and sweat of thousands, was 
established. Martinique shared in the vicissitudes 
of the old contests of France and England against 
Spain and with each other, and saw some stirring 
incidents in West Indian history. 



MARTINIQUE 333 

In that Titanic struggle for possession, while 
Great Britain was engaged in the futile effort to 
put down her American colonies on the Atlantic 
coast, it was in Fort de France Bay that the Count 
de Grasse gathered his formidable fleet which was 
to join with the Spaniards off Hispaniola, capture 
Jamaica, and drive the English out of West Indian 
waters. It was behind the rock of Gros Islet on 
the north coast of St. Lucia, only thirty miles to 
the south, that Rodney lurked with the Formidable 
and the other British men-of-war, waiting for the 
enemy to come out into the open, watching day 
by day upon the height, spy-glass in hand, for the 
signal that De Grasse had ventured forth. It was 
April 8, 1782, that the welcome word came, and 
on the 9th Rodney was on the track of the French 
admiral. Three days the baffling calms and un- 
certain winds delayed the fight, but on the 12th, 
off Dominica, the two great powers were face to 
face, with the chief glory of their navies in fierce 
combat for possession of the islands, all but one of 
which had been torn from Great Britain in Rod- 
ney's absence. That day not only saved the British 
West Indies from France and Spain, but had much 
to do with the terms of peace in 1783. 

A mile or so south of Morne du Diamant, a great 
volcanic rock springs from the sea to the height of 
six hundred feet, with shaggy sides and a flat crest. 
Its top is almost inaccessible, but can be reached by 
perilous clambering and clinging to crags and vines. 
In 1805, in the Napoleonic times. Sir Samuel Hood, 
vexed that the French ships passed through the 



334 THE WEST INDIES 

narrow channel between this rock and the shore and 
thereby eluded him, hoisted men and guns and pro- 
visions for four months to the top of the volcanic 
cone, — one hundred and twenty men and five cannon 
with ammunition, — and they peppered any warlike 
Frenchmen that came past. It was only a question 
of time when they would be forced to give it up for 
lack of ammunition and food, if hostilities continued ; 
and in June, 1805, they finally surrendered after a 
five months' resistance, but ** Her Majesty's sloop 
of war Diamond Rock ' ' became famous by that 
daring exploit. 

Martinique, as the centre of French life and activ- 
ity in the West Indies, was much perturbed by the 
French Revolution ; and the freeing of slaves in 
Haiti caused a tension hard to control. There was 
no actual outbreak until 1831, when a serious insur- 
rection of slaves occurred. It was not repressed 
with the British harshness, but 3000 of the discon- 
tented were manumitted and all free persons of 
•colour were vested with the political rights of 
Frenchmen. After emancipation in 1848, there was 
a contract-labour system, and East Indian coolies 
were imported when the negroes showed a preference 
for working on patches of land of their own and left 
the planters short of labour. That system has been 
abolished, and more and more small holdings pre- 
vail, and plantations disintegrate into farms. Long 
time sugar was the one great staple, coffee having 
much declined, and cotton receiving little attention. 
Sugar, molasses, tafia, and rum were the chief ex- 
ports, but there is less profit in these products of 




Copyrighted by J. Murray Jordan, 1898. 
STATUE OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, FORT-DE-FRANCE, MARTINIQUE. 



MARTINIQUE 335 

cane nowadays, and there is an increase in tobacco, 
cacao, indigo, ginger, fruits, and other things which 
might as well be raised. The exports in recent 
years have averaged about $4,500,000 in annual 
value and the imports $5,500,000. 

The population of Martinique is reckoned at about 
175,000, of whom 10,000 are whites, 15,000 of Asia- 
tic origin, and 150,000 black, or coloured in various 
shades. It is not an idle or thriftless population, 
but lively and generally in comfortable case. It is 
rather careless of the marriage relation and of the 
conventionalities of civilised society, and two thirds 
of the births are said to be illegitimate. The strain 
of French seems to give a peculiar gayety and a 
charm of sensuous beauty to the variegated popu- 
lace, which is fond of bright colours and gaudy 
ornaments in their light attire, and of frolicsome 
diversions mingled with a formal observance of the 
rites of the Romish Church. In the streets and 
market-places it makes a fascinating crowd, and in 
the highways and byways it exerts an idyllic charm 
on the beholder. 

Fort de France on the north side of the deep inlet 
is the capital and fortified place of the island, the 
centre of military and naval activity, the point of 
departure for transatlantic steamers, and of connec- 
tion with all the world by submarine telegraph. It 
is built on a flat shore, with the mangroves stretch- 
ing away inland and ranks of tall palms shading its 
well kept streets. It was awfully shaken by earth- 
quake in 1839, ^rid almost destroyed by fire in 1890. 
Not far away on the same bay is Lamentin, farther 



336 THE WEST INDIES 

around St. Esprit, and on the southern side Dia- 
mant and Marin. The chief towns of the east coast 
are Le Fran9ois, Le Robert, and Trinite, and Ma- 
couba is on the north. But the oldest, most popu- 
lous, picturesque, and flourishing place of all is St. 
Pierre in the north-west. It is also the chief seat of 
the island's trade. There is a lower and an upper 
town, and from the bay it seems to rise in terraces 
of yellow houses with red roofs embowered in gar- 
dens and groves. The streets within the city are 
mostly narrow, steep, and well paved, and are 
periodically washed down by the rains. The slop- 
ing country around is productive of anything trop- 
ical to which attention may be given, and rises to 
verdant heights far above the sea-level, cultivated 
to the top. 

Like Guadeloupe, Martinique is a department of 
France, with one senator and two deputies to repre- 
sent it. It is divided into the two arrondissements of 
St. Pierre and Fort de France, and into twenty-five 
communes. A governor and council are appointed 
by the home government, and there is a general 
council of thirty-six elected members. 

We must not overlook the interesting fact that 
Martinique was the birthplace of the Empress 
Josephine. A marble statue gazing out to sea from 
the palm-shaded savanna of Fort de France is a 
constant reminder of that fact. Those decayed 
scions of French gentility, the Taschers de la Page- 
rie, came out here early in the last century, and 
Joseph Gaspard de Tascher de la Pagerie was an 
artillery officer in the time of the Seven Years' War 



ite. 




€ g 



MARTINIQUE 337 

of 1756-1763; and it was in June of the last year 
that his daughter, Marie-Joseph-Rose, was born at 
the petit bourg of Trois Islets, across the bay from 
Fort de France. At sixteen she went to France to 
marry the son of the governor of Martinique, Mar- 
quis de Beauharnais, but after that unhappy union 
was dissolved returned to her tropical home to 
emerge again in her maturer years and captivate the 
great Napoleon amid the gayeties of Paris. That 
prouder union was destined to a still unhappier dis- 
solution. Madame de Maintenon was also born in 
Martinique and passed her girlhood there as Fran- 
^oise d'Aubigne. History and romance unite with 
lavish nature and a peculiar people to give this 
island a fascination all its own. 




^^^^^^^^ 



CHAPTER XXXV 

ST. LUCIA AND ST. VINCENT 

TWENTY miles across the clear water south of 
Martinique lies St. Lucia. At its northern 
end stands that Gros Islet, or Pigeon Rock, as the 
English call it in their prosy manner, from which 
Rodney watched for the signal that De Grasse had 
issued from Fort Royal Bay, as it then was, on those 
memorable days after Yorktown. On the north-west 
shore of the island itself is the harbour of Castries, 
many a time the headquarters of the British fleet in 
these waters, with a magnificent entrance between 
two headlands and an amphitheatre of wooded- 
mountains at the back. The island is nearly oval in 
form, with its axis pointing east of south, and its 
greatest length is forty-two miles and its width 
twenty-one. The area is two hundred and forty- 
two square miles. It is almost filled with wooded 
mountains running in a jagged ridge through its 
length, and rising in a succession of volcanic cones 
with fantastic variations of form. The highest ele- 
vation is over 4000 feet, but the shaggy covering of 
forest, with its varying hues, goes to the very top, 

338 



ST. LUCIA AND ST. VINCENT 339 

save where the blackened and broken lips of craters 
appear, over which clouds almost always hover. 

-As one sails down the leeward coast, two sharp 
peaks appear to the south above the verdant ridges, 
like a donkey's ears, as the vulgar seamen put it. 
These are ** The Pitons " at the south end of the 
island. All sharp peaks are pitons in the lingo of 
the French, but these are " The Pitons." Viewed 
from the south they rise sheer out of the sea at the 
island's verge, one 2680 and the other 2710 feet, like 
misshapen towers of some vast submerged cathedral, 
whose roof is the mountainous back of the island be- 
hind. Between them a quiet bay charms the eye 
with its verdant background, over which looms in 
the distance the sombre form of the great Soufriere, 
or Solfatara. This huge crater is not altogether 
without life, though its inexhaustible sulphur de- 
posits are accessible to man. Within its gloomy 
depths the lava boils and bubbles, acting in its state 
of fusion, perhaps, as a safety-valve for imprisoned 
forces; and at many a spot among the mountains 
sulphurous vapours issue and thermal waters gush 
out. 

As elsewhere in this marvellous range of tropic 
islands, the mountains are cleft by wild gorges and 
picturesque valleys, and on the slopes the soil, 
made from ancient lava and decomposed vegetation, 
is exceedingly rich. Here are all the trees and vines 
and flowering plants and the profuse variety of fruits 
that we have found in the other islands, but four 
fifths of all the surface is still covered with unbroken 
forest. Here, too, are the birds and tiny beasts, 



340 THE WEST INDIES 

the reptiles and the insects common to the Carib- 
bees, but St. Lucia is the special home of that 
hideous and deadly serpent, the " fer-de-lance," 
or spear-head. He also infests Martinique, and is 
said to have been found in Guadeloupe and St. 
Vincent and on Bequia at the northern verge of 
the Grenadines. As his original home is Guiana, 
and he is never seen in the islands beyond the limits 
mentioned, his presence is a standing puzzle to the 
scientists. He is sometimes called the rat-tailed 
snake, and his make-up is peculiarly repulsive, per- 
haps intensified by the known fact that he needs no 
provocation to strike, and the stroke of his venom- 
ous fangs is almost instantly fatal. There is a harm- 
less snake of his own size — sometimes six or seven 
feet long — called the cribo, which will fight and kill 
the fer-de-lance and eat the slaughtered enemy like 
a cannibal Carib. 

In the old plantation days sugar was raised on 
the slopes of St. Lucia, and to some extent is still 
raised ; but since the abolition of slavery there has 
been languishing and decay, as in so many other- 
English islands. Of the 45,000 inhabitants, barely 
1000 are whites, and the planters' families have 
mostly emigrated. The negroes have obtained 
small allotments of land, and a central " usine," 
or sugar factory, has been established with gov- 
ernment aid, and there are still some exports of 
sugar, coffee, and cacao. The town of Castries, 
named for Marshal de Castries at the time of 
the French occupation, capital and chief city, has 
5000 or 6000 people, and until lately seemed to be 



ST. LUCIA A AW ST. VINCENT 34 1 

going to decay in spite of the advantages of its 
location and its splendid harbour. When Lord 
Rodney urged the retention of St. Lucia rather 
than Martinique, he advised making a great naval 
station here. His advice was not followed, but in 
recent years the harbour has been dredged and lined 
with wharves, and Castries has become the British 
coaling station in the Windward Islands, having 
telegraph connection with all the world. On the 
heights of Morne Fortunee, seven hundred and 
seventy feet above the sea, is the station for troops, 
and Chabot and Chazeau are health resorts. In the 
valleys, especially where there are swamps near the 
mouths of the many streams, the climate is con- 
sidered unhealthy. There are a few stone houses in 
the town of Castries, but for the most part it consists 
of long rows of small dwellings occupied by negroes. 
St. Lucia had its full share in the vicissitudes of 
the struggle for control between England and France 
in this part of the Antilles. It is set down among 
the discoveries of Columbus on his fourth voyage in 
1502, but was left to the native Caribs for more than 
a century and a quarter. It was included in the 
sweeping grant of Charles I. to the Earl of Carlisle 
in 1627, and the English made attempts at settle- 
ment, but were driven off. In 1642, the King of 
France undertook to sell the island to a couple of 
Frenchmen. They were equally unsuccessful in 
their attempts to establish a colony, but rival claims 
were thus set up to its possession. In 1664, it was 
attacked by an English force from Barbados, but 
was ceded to France by the treaty of Breda. In all 



342 THE WEST INDIES 

the subsequent wars it was fought over, taken, and 
retaken, and in the intervals was sometimes treated 
as neutral ground. When Rodney came out in 
1782, it alone remained in English hands among the 
Lesser Antilles. It was French again after 1784, 
until Sir John Moore and Sir Ralph Abercrombie 
recovered it by crushing the combined force of the 
French and negroes in 1796, for the French gov- 
ernor had freed the slaves in 1794, and they fought 
desperately and vainly to keep their freedom. Sir 
John Moore was governor of the island for a while, 
— he of Corunna and Wolfe's famous dirge. The 
French got hold of St. Lucia again in 1802, but it 
was retaken in 1803, and has remained an English 
possession from that time, though in character and 
tradition more French than English, like Dominica. 

St. Lucia is in the track of the hurricane, and has 
suffered severely from its visitations. That of Sep- 
tember II, 1898, was less destructive here than in 
St. Vincent and Barbados, but owing to the steep 
slopes of the island the heavy rain which accom- 
panied the furious wind caused landslides that ruined, 
many plantations, destroyed crops, and buried the 
habitations of the people, sometimes with their oc- 
cupants. The fact that most of the cultivated land 
and of the population is on the western side of the 
volcanic ridge saved them from such complete de- 
struction as was wrought where the tempest had a 
less interrupted sweep. 

St. Vincent is the smallest of the range of volcanic 
islands, being about seventeen miles long and ten 
wide, of a generally oval form, and containing one 



ST. LUCIA AND ST. VINCENT 343 

hundred and thirty-two square miles. It is traversed 
lengthwise by a range of volcanic hills intersected by 
beautiful valleys, but there is only one tall cone, 
the Morne Garou, 5200 feet in altitude. From the 
dark and jagged top, upon which clouds almost 
constantly hang, the rich lava soil slopes to the sea, 
spreading into green plantations and verdant groves 
and gardens toward the coast. The great Soufriere, 
the scene of the terrible eruption of 1812, is in the 
north-west, flanking the main peak at some distance. 
The volcanic eruption of April 27, 1812, is indeed 
the chief event in the history of 5t. Vincent. There 
are inconsistent accounts of a somewhat similar oc- 
currence in 1718, which tore the mountain to pieces, 
and there was some volcanic disturbance in the vicin- 
ity in 1785. But at the beginning of this century 
the old crater was quiescent and contained in its 
depths what has often been described as a " beauti- 
ful blue lake," though nobody could get more than 
a casual glance at it through the jungle about its 
rocky walls. For a year or two before the eruption 
of 181 2, the earth had been disturbed by internal 
convulsions over a broad region. Expanding gases 
under tremendous pressure were struggling to escape 
and shook the islands and the shores all around the 
American Mediterranean. On the 26th of March, 
they seemed to gather all their energies under the 
foundations of the Venezuela coast, and, with a 
gigantic effort to break loose, they shattered the 
^ city of Caracas into a heap of ruins, burying 10,000 
of its people in a common grave. Still roaring and 
bellowing in the subterranean chambers, they sought 



344 THE WEST INDIES 

a vent where the resistance would be least. They 
found it in a month in the old Soufriere of St. Vin- 
cent, but not through the ancient water-logged crater. 

They broke, with a terrific explosion, through 
the mountain on the other side of a rocky wall 
eight hundred feet high, and hurled into the heavens 
with enormous force and fury a cloud of stones 
and dust and black volumes of smoke that filled 
the canopy of heaven with impenetrable darkness 
for three days and spread dread and gloom over 
all the island. At the end of that period, the pro- 
longed discharge of ash-laden vapours that extin- 
guished the sun was followed by a gush of lava 
which flowed down to the sea, and the agony of the 
earth was over. The terrible rumblings and explo- 
sions in the bowels of the globe, as the imprisoned 
forces rushed to the new-found vent, were heard with 
terror in Venezuela and Barbados, but were accom- 
panied by no surface shocks. At Barbados the 
English soldiers took it for the cannonading of ships 
at sea and prepared for an attack; and then came 
the strangest part of the phenomenon. 

This island is one hundred miles east of St. Vin- 
cent, while the trade-winds blow steadily toward the 
;outh-west ; but over Barbados gathered a black pall 
that shrouded it in Egyptian darkness, and an im- 
palpable black dust began to fall like a snow of pul- 
verised jet. It covered the island inches deep, with 
ultimate fertilising effect, and after the fright was 
over, it was found to be the dust of that terrible 
commotion in the Soufriere of St. Vincent,^ fanned 
a hundred miles over sea by the returning currents 



ST. LUCIA AND ST. VINCENT 34$ 

above the trade-winds. It must have been hurled 
some 16,000 feet into the air. This eruption so re- 
Heved the agonies of the earth that the burnt-out 
cones of the Caribbees have been quiescent since, 
save for inward boiHng, though occasionally the im- 
prisoned gases, under the pressure of sinking strata 
of the earth's crust, swell and rumble through the 
deeper galleries and make the surface quake and 
tremble. 

St. Vincent was the chief victim of the terrible 
hurricane which swept from Barbados across the 
"Windward Islands" on the nth of September, 
1898. It seems to have been in the line of its in- 
tensest fury, and Kingstown and nearly the whole 
area of cultivated land were torn by its blasts and 
lashed by the torrents which they carried. The 
city was almost destroyed, many of its inhabitants 
were crushed to death, and according to the early 
reports three fourths of the population of the whole 
island were made homeless and destitute. The 
wind stripped the foliage from the trees, leaving 
those which still stood like bare poles ; and with the 
driving rain it shaved the vegetation from the face 
of the ground and scattered the flimsy cabins of the 
negroes like chaff. Even the animal life is said to 
have been silenced, and in the grey desolation which 
suddenly took the place of tropical exuberance there 
was neither sound of bird or insect nor sight of rep- 
tile for many days. The island had not been struck 
by a hurricane comparable to this since 1831, and it 
is said to have excelled in destructive violence the 
greater one of 1780, 



346 THE WEST INDIES 

It was on his third voyage in 1498 that Columbus 
discovered the island of St. Vincent. It was granted 
to the Earl of Carlisle by Charles I. in 1627, given to 
Lord Willoughby by Charles II. in 1672, and be- 
stowed upon Lord Montagu by George I. in 1722; 
but the Caribs made a desperate resistance to the 
delivery of the goods in each case, and as France 
put in a rival claim, it was agreed by the treaty of 
Aix-la-Chapelle to leave it neutral like Dominica and 
let its own people keep it a while longer. The 
agreement was disregarded by adventurous colonists, 
and French and English long fought for possession. 
It was conceded to Great Britain by the treaty of 
1763, and settlers began to fight the Caribs in ear- 
nest. There were still French and English conten- 
tions, but after 1783 the English held the island, and 
in 1796 they settled the Carib question after a bloody 
struggle by transporting nearly all that were left of 
the aborigines to the island of Roatan in Honduras 
Bay. A small remnant was left, which with a mix- 
ture of negro blood still survives on a reservation on 
the eastern side of the island, peacefully cultivating 
yams and arrowroot. It is similar to the remnant 
in Dominica, living apart, but so modified by the 
African strain as to exhibit none of the fierce char- 
acteristics attributed to the race. 

After the peace of 1783 had finally confirmed Brit- 
ish possession, sugar plantations under slave labour 
were developed on the fertile slopes of St. Vincent, 
and planters grew rich. Since the abolition of slav- 
ery there has been the decline elsewhere experienced 
in the English islands, and of the 48,000 inhabitants 



ST. LUCIA AND ST. VINCENT 347 

less than 3000 are of unmixed European blood. 
Some Asiatic coolies were introduced and a few 
Portuguese labourers from the Azores, but the large 
profits of sugar were gone, and many plantations 
have been broken up into small allotments. The 
blacks are gradually becoming landholders, and 
arrowroot is now the chief export. 

Kingstown on the leeward coast, at the extreme 
south-west, is the one available port, and there is, or 
was before the last hurricane, a straggling town of 
6000 people, or less, on the shore. The bay was 
beautiful to look upon, with a verdant amphitheatre 
back of it, and red-roofed houses rising on the lower 
slopes amid palm trees and gardens. In the middle, 
at the highest point, was a substantial government 
house surrounded by a botanical garden. There 
were three parallel avenues conforming to the curve 
of the shore, and intersecting streets ran up the 
slopes and out to the suburban gardens and planta- 
tions. It is the trading centre and the one town of 
importance in the island, and it contains the churches 
and chapels of five Protestant denominations and an 
increasing number of schools. Away from Kings- 
town the population is almost wholly rural, occupy- 
ing scattered villages, which consist of negroes* huts 
clustering about a few more substantial structures, 
or living in cabins appurtenant to the old plantation 
buildings. Industry and trade have relapsed to a 
primitive state and respond but feebly to the pulsa- 
tions of the world's commerce, which touch the 
island only at the port of Kingstown. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

THE GRENADINES AND GRENADA 

THE sixty miles between St. Vincent and Gren- 
ada is strewn with islets, which continue the 
great curve of the Caribbees, bearing a little west of 
south. They are called the Grenadines, and state- 
ments of their number range from three hundred to 
six hundred, but most of them are mere rocks and 
bits of earth. On the surface they have the appear- 
ance of fragments of some greater island, shattered 
to pieces and scattered over the waters ; but in real- 
ity they are the peaks and pinnacles of a submerged 
mountain ridge, with deep water around and among 
them — a section of the broken and partly sunken 
bridge which in ages far remote connected the con- 
tinents on their eastern side and inclosed the double 
basin of a sea whose outlet was over the present 
Cordilleras to the Pacific, as modern scientific men 
believe. 

Some of these islands are fertile and cultivated, 
and all together have perhaps a dozen square miles 
of area and 3000 inhabitants. Bequia, a short dis- 
tance from St. Vincent, is six miles long, and con- 

348 • 



THE GRENADINES AND GRENADA 349 

tains some 8ocx) acres, and Cariacou, or Cariabacu, 
near the southern end of the range, is the next 
largest. Many of them have names, some of Carib 
origin, like the two already mentioned, some derived 
from families that have owned or occupied them, as 
Balliceaux and Battowia, but more from some physi- 
cal characteristic or aspect, as Round, Castle, Sail, 
Bird, Mosquito, and so on. The present dwellers are 
mostly negroes, and though some cultivate patches 
of sugar-cane, cotton, indigo, or fruit trees, where 
once were considerable plantations, for the most part 
they raise " provisions," and cattle and sheep, build 
boats, and go a-fishing. Sometimes they catch 
whales among the rocks and reefs and extract their 
oil. Often an island is owned by a single person, 
or by a family which is engaged in raising cattle and 
poultry, and, from the centre all round to the sea, 
is *' lord of the fowl and the brute." And they are 
said to be much attached to their broken bits of 
country, these people of the Grenadines. The land 
is volcanic and in places fertile; but, with water 
everywhere around, there is sometimes a lack of 
that which is good to drink, for there are no. running 
streams and few wells that escape a decided saline 
flavour. On Cariacou there is a sloping hill 1000 
feet high, and elsewhere there are varied heights 
and terraces of the jagged character which on other 
islands appears high in air instead of along the water- 
level. Symptoms of volcanic action in the depths 
are sometimes exhibited even yet. 

Having passed these straggling Cyclades, we come 
to Grenada, last and most beautiful of the Caribbean 



350 THE WEST INDIES 

isles. It is about eighteen miles long by seven wide, 
with an area of one hundred and twenty square miles, 
and has a range of volcanic hills running through it 
and throwing off lower ridges which sink into gentle 
slopes and spread into valleys, though they some- 
times strike the coast with steep promontories and 
abrupt cliffs. Many streams come down between 
the slopes, their banks softening into marsh-land near 
the sea. There is a central culminating peak, Mount 
Maitland, 2750 feet high ; and crumbling cones here 
and there are vestiges of ancient craters. Doubt- 
less the" Grand Etang," or " Big Pond," up in the 
mountains, occupies a space that once belched fire 
from the " burning core below." It is 1740 feet 
above the sea-level, nearly circular, two miles and a 
half in circumference, and rimmed around with wav- 
ing palm and bamboo. 

The special charm of the scenery of Grenada is 
in the softening of the jagged outlines made by rifts 
and scars of volcanic action, a variety of form and 
colour and of material in the exposed rocks, and 
an exceptional richness in the thick vesture of 
verdure and of bloom that covers it. Among its 
forest-clad precipices are grey and red sandstone 
buttresses, basaltic pillars and colonnades, slabs of 
argillaceous schist and ornamental porphyries; and 
in the mossy and fern-clothed glens are pure rivu- 
lets, while sulphurous and chalybeate springs sug- 
gest the everlasting fires below. The animal life 
is mostly of the familiar tropic kind, but with no 
noxious reptiles, though the scorpion and centi- 
pede seem almost to merge from the insect to the 



THE GRENADINES AND GRENADA 35 1 

reptilian order. The iguana is rather plentiful, and 
among the mountains is a " wilderness of mon- 
keys," much given to making raids upon neigh- 
bouring plantations and often hunted as ** rare 
sport " by the unfeeling victims of their pranks. 
As in most of the Antilles, the humming-bird is 
conspicuous among feathered creatures, and the 
firefly shines in the insect tribe. The variety and 
profusion of vegetation and of fruit seem almost, 
without Hmit, ranging from shore to mountain top. 
It was on his third voyage in 1498 that Columbus 
discovered this island, and called it Ascension, 
watching the church calendar, as usual, for his 
names ; but the Spaniards seem to have forgotten 
about it or to have considered it prudent to leave its 
Carib possessors undisturbed. It was included in 
the prodigal grant to the Earl of Carlisle, but about 
1650, when royal grants were out of favour in Eng- 
land, the French came down from Martinique under 
Governor Duparquet, a nephew of that doughty ad- 
venturer, Captain Esnambuc, and, after getting 
the good-will of the unsuspecting natives, proceeded 
to their extermination in the most systematic and 
cruel fashion. On the northern coast there is a 
promontory called the " Morne des Sauteurs," or, 
by the English, " The Caribs' Leap," where the last 
of the desperate and hounded aborigines are said to 
have thrown themselves into the sea. But little 
progress was made until 17 14, when the French 
West India Company acquired property here and 
established intercourse with Martinique. The Brit- 
ish seized this island at the time of Rodney's first 



352 The west indies 

cruise in 1762, and held it after the peace, and 
though the French captured it in 1779, it was re- 
covered by Rodney's great victory of 1782, and has 
been in English hands ever since. 

It had its era of prosperity in the days of great 
sugar plantations, when most of its cultivated soil 
was devoted to cane-fields, though equally adapted 
to cotton, tobacco, indigo, and all manner of fruits 
and spices. With the abolition of slavery and the 
depression in sugar came languor and decay. Old 
planters gave it up and went home; there was a 
general emigration of whites, and the land fell into 
the hands of the negroes in small parcels, until the 
Europeans numbered a few hundred among a popu- 
lation of near 50,000. It is a populous island in 
proportion to habitable area, and though it no longer 
exports much of the old ** colonial produce," it has 
been more prosperous for the actual inhabitants than 
in the slavery days. They raise little cotton, sugar, 
and coffee, but cacao has become a staple, and gin- 
ger, nutmegs, cloves, and other spices, and even 
tea, are grown, and show the capabilities of the 
land. On the different levels the capacity for varied 
production is such that a systematic industry would 
make this a source of all tropical luxuries. 

There were once several good harbours on this 
island, Egmont in the south, Grenville Bay in the 
east, and Charlotteville in the north ; but of late 
even the chief port is not much used — St. George 
in the south-west, where the capital, St. George's, 
or George Town, is situated, headquarters of the 
Windward Islands government. This is called the 



THE GRENADINES AND GRENADA 353 

** finest harbour in the Antilles." A long penin- 
sula stretches into the bay, ending with a headland, 
formerly strongly fortified, but latterly fallen into 
neglect. On the right of this, looking inward from 
the sea, is the deep " carenage," where large vessels 
can come close in shore and be safe. Within the 
fortified headland along the slope of the peninsula 
for nearly a mile straggles the white town with its 
red roofs and its church spires, pretty at a distance 
but shabby and out of repair within. The long 
street leads to suburban villas and gardens on 
the semicircular slope at the head of the lagoon, 
which heighten the beauty of the picture, while 
farther back rise the verdant hills even to that cen- 
tral volcanic peak. Across the bay is the " Etang 
du Vieux Bourg," a pond with surroundings suggest- 
ive of volcanic eruption and of earthquake, and 
said by vague tradition to be the site of an old 
French town. It seems to be an ancient crater, and 
the broken and dilapidated end of the island near 
here marks the termination of the volcanic ridge 
that cuts the sea with a curve of a thousand miles 
and sticks its jagged edges in the air. Between it 
and the South American coast is a space of sixty 
miles of deep water. 

Grenada is divided into six parishes for purposes 
of administration, and it has a legislative assembly 
of seventeen elective members, but qualified voters 
are few. There is a fine government house and a 
few stately mansions at or near St. George's, and 
there are several English Protestant and French 
Catholic churches, some with schools for the blacks, 



354 ^^^ WEST INDIES 

who make up the bulk of the growing generation. 
Life in this charming island is languid, and for 
many years industry has seemed lazy and trade dis- 
couraged. Perhaps the lavish generosity of nature 
and the ease with which life may be sustained in 
indolent comfort make it too much like the land 

" In which it seemed always afternoon," 
and 

" All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
Breathing like one that hath a heavy dream." 





CHAPTER XXXVII 

BARBADOS 

THE island of Barbados is isolated from the rest 
of the West Indies in more senses than one. 
It is ninety-five miles from the nearest point in the 
Caribbees, which is the southern end of St. Lucia, 
and the intervening space sinks to a depth of 1350 
fathoms, or more than 8000 feet. It is still farther 
from Tobago and the continental system of South 
America, with abysmal depths of ocean between. 
It is the flattened top of a vast cone, lifted during 
the reign of " chaos and old night " by Titanic 
forces beneath, at a weal: spot in the earth's crust, 
out of the profound depths to the water's surface, 
and there covered during long ages with coral de- 
posits. Its limestone structure is in layers which 
indicate a succession of upheavals, and from certain 
points of view the present surface rises in terraces 
toward a central elevation. Quarries reveal the dif- 
ferent coral beds distinctly. On the windward side 
the aspect is more broken and the work of external 
erosion is more apparent. There is a highland sec- 
tion, popularly called " Scotland," where there is 

355 



356 THE WEST INDIES 

sandstone and a chalky soil containing remains of 
infusoria; but six sevenths of the area is of coralline 
limestone. At one point the trachyte core of the 
huge cone appears above ground, and there are still 
traces of old volcanic action. The polyps have not 
ceased their work, or rather their growth, and the 
island is almost encircled with reefs. In some places 
the fringe is three miles wide. There are few deep 
channels in this coral rim, and navigation is danger- 
ous for those not familiar with the passages. 

This island is twenty-one miles long from north 
to south, and about fourteen miles across at the 
widest part, expanding toward the south into a 
rough pear shape. It is fifty-five miles around the 
shore, not following the indentations, and the area 
is one hundred and sixty-six square miles. A low 
ridge runs through the land nearly north and south, 
tulminating somewhat north of the middle point in 
Mount Hillaby, which is only 1145 feet above the 
sea-level ; but the surface in general is undulating, 
with a great variety of hill and dale of the gentler 
kind, and none of the abrupt declivities and wild' 
ravines- of the Antilles. It is a " rolling country," 
and a verdant one. The ingredients of the soil, 
derived from coral limestone and ancient volcanic 
ashes, moulded with the remains of thousands of 
generations of vegetable life, produce a mixture of 
inexhaustible ■fertility. Once it was covered with 
forests, but these have been swept away, and nearly 
the whole surface has been long under cultivation, 
which has reduced the indigenous flora to com- 
parative insignificance. There are palm trees and 



BARBADOS 357 

remnants of tropical growth, but they are not con- 
spicuous, and the gardens are variegated with exotic 
trees and plants, and a kind of bloom that suggests 
old England. 

The streams are few and insignificant, and the 
porous and well-drained ground is free from mi- 
asma. The island is healthy, fanned by the steady 
trade-winds for three quarters of the year, though 
it has its hot ** spells" and its wet" spells," like 
other tropic lands. The driest month is March 
and the wettest is October, and there are all grada- 
tions between without a distinct line limiting the 
wet and dry seasons. Much of the time one needs 
an umbrella against the sun or against the rain, but 
there are weeks of breezy and delightful weather. 
The fauna has been as much modified as the flora. 
There are no wild animals and few reptiles, and even 
the insects are comparatively innocuous, as the re- 
sult of that civilisation which subdues the luxuriance 
of nature and subjects the soil to the wholesome 
processes of cultivation. The animals and fowls are 
mostly domestic, and even the wild birds are not 
specially tropical, but the surrounding waters abound 
with fish whose habitat has not been changed. 

Barbados was isolated even in its discovery and in 
its history, and the origin of the name is lost in ob- 
scurity. Columbus knew not of it, and it is not cer- 
tain that its discoverers were Spanish. It has been 
assumed that the word " barbados " is Portuguese, 
meaning " bearded," and that wandering navigators 
of Portugal came upon the island first and fixed its la- 
bel ; but ' ' barbado ' ' is Spanish as well as Portuguese 



358 THE WEST INDIES 

for " bearded," and there is no record of discovery 
by men of Portugal. Mr. Froude said that he had 
seen the name upon a Spanish chart of 1525, but 
other writers declare that there is no mention of the 
island earlier than 1536. It appeared upon old 
Spanish charts as San Bernardo, Bernados, Barbu- 
doso, Baruodos, and Baruodo, which may be varia- 
tions of an ill-known name and exhibitions of early 
eccentricities in orthography. Even the meaning of 
the name is disputed. It is generally explained as 
referring to a wild fig or banyan tree which sends 
shoots down to the ground like beards, and which 
were common in the island when it was discov- 
ered, giving its landscape a profusion of whiskers. 
Mr. Froude did not like this derivation, and be- 
lieved that the Spaniards found bearded Caribs 
there when they went around capturing wild men to 
do their work; but there is no evidence of that, and 
the Spaniards did not succeed in making slaves of 
the Caribs who were much nearer their base than 
this island. Besides, we have no record of whiskered 
Caribs, and it is doubtful whether Spaniards visited 
Barbados at all; but as this word is used in their 
language for shoots growing from trees, without 
thought of the original figurative sense, it seems 
hardly necessary to strain so hard for a derivation. 

The first thing definitely known is that after this 
island appeared upon the charts as Barbados, an 
English skipper on his way to Surinam with the Olive 
Blossom landed on its shores, set up a cross, and 
carved upon a tree, ** James, King of England and 
of this island." That was in 1605, and it is said that 



BARBADOS 



359 



the island was then covered with woods and in- 
habited only by " wild hogs," which may refer to 
peccaries. There were then, so far as known, no 
Caribs there to be captured or exterminated. In 
1624, Sir William Courteen, a London merchant, 
trading with Guiana, sent a ship to Barbados to 
establish a claim for himself, but the next year a 
patent of proprietorship was granted to the Earl of 
Marlborough, and two ships went out under his 
authority, and landed in February, 1625, with thirty 
colonists. They called their settlement Jamestown, 
but in 1627 the island was included in the grant to 
the Earl of Carlisle on condition of a certain pay- 
ment to Marlborough for his interest. Under 
authority of the new proprietor, the Society of 
London Merchants acquired 10,000 acres of land, 
sent out colonists, and established a government of 
their own. Their settlement was made in 1628 on 
the south-west coast, where there was a good road- 
stead, which they called Carlisle Bay. Where they 
established their town there was a rude bridge over 
a creek, and they called the place Bridgetown, and 
so it is unto this day. 

The first settlers raised maize — which in our time 
and country we call simply *' corn," — yams, sweet 
potatoes, and plantains, and, after a time, indigo, 
cotton, tobacco, and ginger; and from the woods 
they obtained logwood, fustic, and other merchant- 
able articles, for the time of sugar-cane and slavery 
was not yet. In time, British fashion, they organ- 
ised their government on the home model, with 
executive, judicial, and legislative powers, and es- 



360 THE WEST INDIES 

tablished parishes for local administration. They 
throve mightily, and it is recorded that there were 
50,000 inhabitants twenty years after the first settle- 
ment. Some of them were Irish contract labourers 
and others were of the convict class, but the colony 
was growing so decidedly English that it was called 
* ' Little England. ' ' It became a refuge for cavaliers 
in the Parliament and Commonwealth time, and was 
intensely loyal. On hearing of the death of Charles 
I., the people swore allegiance to Charles II., and 
Lord Willoughby became governor by authority of 
that exiled and uncrowned monarch. It caused 
much contention, and Cromwell sent out Sir George 
Ayscue with a squadron to settle matters. Lord 
Willoughby was disposed to resist, and, as Ayscue 
did not fancy suppressing Englishmen by force, the 
matter was composed in an amicable way. When 
Venables and Penn were on their way to seize Span- 
ish possessions in the West Indies, they took volun- 
teer reinforcements from Barbados, and these helped 
to start the Jamaica colony. 

After the Restoration, Lord Willoughby was gov- 
ernor again, and in 1663 the proprietary interest was 
extinguished, the Crown taking direct control and 
granting a colonial '* constitution," which has de- 
veloped with little change since. Lord Willoughby 
was lost in a hurricane in 1666, while on his way to 
attack Guadeloupe, and his brother, Lord William, 
became governor. By this time the slave trade was 
under way, and Barbados became the chief English 
market for Africans, next to Kingston in Jamaica, 
with a rival in the northern islands at St. Kitt's. 



BARBADOS 36 1 

The monopoly granted in England to the Royal 
African Company injured the profits of this busi- 
ness, but the sugar plantation system developed 
under slave labour, and Barbados had a long period 
of increasing wealth. Bridgetown became the great 
central mart for British trade, and was made the 
English military and naval headquarters in the West 
Indies. It acquired the airs of a thriving metro- 
polis, and Pere Labat was greatly impressed with its 
magnificence two centuries ago. 

Barbados is isolated in its history inasmuch as it 
was never the subject of the conflict for possession 
that went on so long. It was British from the start, 
and though sometimes menaced was never attacked. 
It took part in the British assaults upon other islands, 
but only as a loyal supporter of the home govern- 
ment. Its " constitutional rights " and its ** repre- 
sentative institutions" led it to indulge in political 
controversies, and it fought against trade restrictions 
and customs duties upon its products, and once de- 
clared the principle that a colony with representative 
institutions was not subject to taxation by the home 
government. One of the stirring incidents in its 
history was the flying visit of Lord Nelson in 1805, 
when he was chasing the French fleet and the island 
colonies were in dread of a combined attack from 
France and Spain. There was no French fleet there 
and no present danger of the combined attack, but 
the Barbadians were so relieved and so proud and 
grateful that after Nelson's great victory they named 
the principal square of Bridgetown Trafalgar, and 
put a bronze statue of the naval hero in it. 



362 THE WEST INDIES 

The population of Barbados has increased to 
about 200,000. In 1887 it had reached more than 
180,000, and it is the most densely peopled piece of 
earth of its extent anywhere. When the slave trade 
was abolished in 1806, there were 60,000 negroes in 
the island, and in 1834, 83,176 slaves were emanci- 
pated, the compensation for owners being twenty 
pounds and fourteen shillings per head. Now, nine 
tenths of the population are free negroes who work 
for hire. The planters escaped the labour trouble 
that followed emancipation in the other English 
islands because the land was substantially all in the 
hands of owners and under cultivation. The negroes 
had to work for them or starve. They could not 
squat upon little patches and live on yams and fruit 
or cultivate small crops for sale. There were five 
hundred great sugar plantations and many small 
holdings in the hands of white men, practically 
covering the island, and it was not an easy place for 
a freed negro to emigrate from. The relations were 
not greatly changed by freedom, except that those 
of forced dependence and subjection were severed. 
The blacks obtained no political rights or social 
recognition, but had to take care of themselves with 
their slender earnings. Barbados, like the other 
sugar-growing islands, has suffered from depression 
in the price of cane-sugar and the stimulated com- 
petition of beet root. It has kept up the struggle and 
done little to vary its industries, though its soil and 
climate are adapted to a great variety of products. 

Barbados has always had a certain degree of 
autonomy as a Crown colony, and prior to 188$ it 



BARBADOS 363 

was the headquarters of the government of the 
Windward Islands. Since then it has been a colony 
by itself, with a governor appointed by the Crown, 
a legislative council of nine members, of whom two 
are officials and the others appointed on the recom- 
mendation of the governor. It has long had a 
"house of assembly," consisting of twenty-four 
elective members, but there is a moderate property 
qualification for the suffrage and a higher one for 
eligibility to the house. Formerly there were only 
about 1200 or 1300 qualified voters, but the suffrage 
has been extended so as to take in something over 
4000 citizens. An executive council, presided over 
by the governor, and consisting of the commander of 
the troops, the colonial secretary, the attorney-gen- 
eral, one appointed member of the legislative coun- 
cil, and four members of the house of assembly 
selected by the governor, proposes all measures of 
legislation and sees to their execution. The gover- 
nor is himself the commander of the naval forces in 
the West Indies. Two members of the assembly 
are elected in each of eleven parishes and two addi- 
tional in the city of Bridgetown, which is in the 
parish of St. Michael's. 

The parishes have their vestries with local juris- 
diction, three of them with sixteen members each, 
and eight of them with ten, all elected. There is a 
board of thirty-three road commissioners appointed 
by the governor, and the highways are kept in 
excellent condition. The governor also appoints 
a central board of education, and the local control 
of schools is in the hands of the clergy and of 



364 THE WEST INDIES 

committees. In 1712, Sir Christopher Codring- 
ton bequeathed two valuable estates to found a 
college, and the first buildings were completed a 
few years later in an attractive location some four- 
teen miles from Bridgetown. Codrington College 
ranks high among colonial institutions of learning. 
There are four scholarships with an income of ;^ 175 
each, tenable at either Oxford or Cambridge, under 
the direction of the board of education. The school 
system of the island is well supported and efificient. 
Elementary instruction is quite general, and the 
people are, as a rule, well ordered. The English 
Church is partly supported by the government and 
includes by far the larger proportion of the inhabit- 
ants, though there are dissenters, Roman Catholics, 
and Jews, with places of worship. Barbados is an 
English bishopric which formerly had a wide juris- 
diction, but one has since been established at Anti- 
gua and another at Trinidad. The judiciary includes 
a court of chancery, a court of admiralty, and one of 
sessions (with criminal jurisdiction). The annual 
revenues amount to about $750,000. 

Nearly all the trade is centred at Bridgetown, and 
in and about it is gathered a third of the population 
of the island. It lies along the curved beach of 
Carlisle Bay for two miles, at the foot of a hill upon 
whose slopes are many gardens and villas. It is 
well laid out and substantially built, having been 
twice nearly destroyed by fire in times past, and has 
a spacious market-place and a fine public square 
with shade trees. The government buildings are 
near the sea, and a short distance away are the 



BARBADOS 365 

Spacious barracks and the military hospital. St. 
Michael's Cathedral, which is solid but plain, St. 
Mary's Church, and the Jewish synagogue are 
among the notable buildings. There are several 
hotels, and a newspaper which was established in 
1730. The port is an open roadstead, and the inner 
harbour, or " carenage," will not admit vessels of 
deep draught ; but Bridgetown is the terminus for the 
transatlantic steamship service, and the centre of dis- 
tribution for traffic with the other English islands, as 
well as a port of call between the United States and 
South America. It is also connected with the ocean 
telegraph system. Fontabelle is an attractive sub- 
urban place, and Hastings is a popular resort. Other 
places along the coast are Spaightstown, Hoisting- 
town, and Holetown. There are twenty-five or 
thirty miles of railway on the island, mostly for 
plantation service. 

Not only the language and the laws but all the 
characteristics and traditions of Barbados are dis- 
tinctively English, — one might say intensely English, 
It is sometimes called " Bimshire " and its people 
** Bims," but the term has the obscure origin of 
slang, and is merely expressive to the popular mind 
without having any clear significance. While the 
colony has not been flourishing of late and there 
have been signs of discontent, and though the over- 
crowded population has been drifting away to some 
extent, its natural resources and attractions are likely 
to renew its prosperity as soon as its labour force is 
applied to a greater variety of industries. It has not 
suffered from earthquakes or volcanoes of its own, 



366 THE WEST INDIES 

but its position and its comparatively unbroken sur- 
face expose it to the fury of the hurricane. The 
most destructive recorded was in 1780, when 4326 
persons lost their lives and the damage to property 
amounted to about ^1,250,000 sterling. There was 
one of great violence in 1831, when the loss of life 
was less and the injury to property greater. That 
which has already been mentioned as devastating 
St. Lucia and St. Vincent on September 11, 1898, 
struck Barbados on the evening of Saturday the 
loth, and raged through the night with dreadful 
fury. Her Majesty's ship A/ert got out of the har- 
bour of Bridgetown, but a number of merchant 
vessels were driven upon the reefs and wrecked. 
Buildings in the city were seriously damaged, many 
persons lost their lives, and 10,000 habitations of 
labourers on the island were blown away. Great 
injury was done to crops, but no such wide-spread 
destitution and suffering were produced as in St. 
Vincent. 




CHAPTER XXXVIII 

TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 

THE narrow island of Tobago lies twenty miles to 
the north-east of Trinidad, which is the nearest 
land, fully a hundred miles to the south-east of 
Grenada at the terminus of the Caribbees, and one 
hundred and twenty miles south-south-west of Bar- 
bados. It is surrounded by deep water, growing 
shallower in the direction of Trinidad, and it is an 
outpost of the South American land system of which 
that island is a detached fragment. The mountain 
range that runs through its length from south-west 
to north-east is like a deflected continuation of that 
which crosses northern Trinidad from the Venezuela 
coast. The length of the island is twenty-six miles, 
and its greatest width seven and a half, and it has 
an area of about one hundred and twenty square 
miles. Its mountains consist of volcanic cones and 
ridges, and are covered with dense forests. The 
culminating peak rises 2130 feet above the sea-level. 
Along the higher steeps the pimento grows and the 
parrakeets feed upon the aromatic berries which 
furnish the allspice of commerce. Between the 

367 



368 THE WEST INDIES 

mountain forests and the sea -there is a belt of palm 
groves, sugar plantations, and the dwelling-places 
of a sparse population, numbering less than 20,000 
in all. There are several small bays upon the coast, 
but the only one much used is in the south-west 
where the port and town of Scarborough lies. This 
is the capital and chief trading-place, and though it 
has barely 1200 inhabitants there was formerly an 
export trade from it of $400,000 yearly value, mostly 
in sugar. 

Tobago lies so that the trade-winds sweep both its 
coasts, and it has a healthy climate. It has a tropi- 
cal profusion of plants and animals, substantially 
like those of Trinidad, and belonging in the main to 
the South American system of flora and fauna, 
though with a mixture of West Indian varieties. 
The name in the form Tobaco was a Carib word 
applied to a kind of pipe in which the dried leaves 
which the natives called cohiba were smoked. 
When the island was discovered it was occupied by 
Caribs, who were afterwards driven out by Arawaks 
from Trinidad, taking refuge in St. Vincent. It- 
had been desolate and deserted for a long time, 
when some Dutch traders from Flushing set up a 
station there. This was broken up and the settlers 
killed or carried away by Spaniards from Trinidad, 
but another party of Flushingers, or Fichilingos, as 
the Spanish called them, took possession in 1654. 
It is said that in the interval of solitude an English 
seaman was cast away upon the island, and that his 
experience furnished the suggestion for the story of 
Robinson Crusoe, the man Friday being a Carib, 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 369 

and the savages who afterwards appeared being 
Arawaks from Trinidad. Tobago, and not Juan 
Fernandez, where Alexander Selkirk was cast 
ashore, is now regarded as the real Crusoe's island. 
The Dutch traders had the sagacity to make their 
island neutral ground in commerce and hold it open 
to settlers from all quarters, but the result was that 
the English element gained a preponderance, and 
the " powers " which made the treaty of Versailles 
in 1763 gave it to Great Britain as a permanent pos- 
session. There had been a considerable number of 
French Huguenots among the settlers, but in 1793 
all remaining Frenchmen were expelled by act of 
the colonial assembly. There had been a system 
of bringing out labourers from Scotland under three- 
year contracts — the '* thirty-six months' men " — 
but it was superseded by the more profitable use of 
African slaves, and the cultivated land, not more 
than an eighth of the area at any time, was occupied 
chiefly by sugar plantations. The abolition of slav- 
ery had a depressing effect, and there are but a few 
hundred white people left in the island. Still, the 
large plantations have been maintained, and sugar 
has continued to be the chief product for export, 
though cacao, coffee, and fruits are raised to a slowly 
increasing extent. The island has the disadvantage 
of being off the main lines of trade, and is almost 
left to the keeping of the native negroes. It is at- 
tached to the Windward Islands colony, and has an 
administrator and a legislative council, but the latter 
consists of six members of whom three are officials 
and the other three are appointed by the governor. 



3/0 THE WEST INDIES 

The governor of the colony has absolute control of 
the affairs of the island. 

On his third voyage from Spain in 1498, Colum- 
bus took a more southerly and therefore a longer 
course than before. He had been two months from 
San Lucar and nearly a month from the Cape Verde 
Islands; his vessels had been buffeted and badly 
shaken, and he was short of water; he was about to 
turn northward to make for the colony on Espafiola, 
which he had left two years before, when land was 
discerned far to the south-west. There seemed to 
be three peaks blending into one mass, and in de- 
vout gratefulness he called it La Trinidad. There 
is a doubtful and unnecessary story that he had 
vowed to name the first newly found land for the 
Holy Trinity if he should come safely through his 
peril and distress. Changing his course southward, 
the dauntless navigator made his way down the 
eastern coast of a forest-covered island, turned along 
its southern shore, passed through a long, narrow 
passage, beset with currents, which he called La 
Boca Sierpe (" Serpent Mouth "), into an expanse of 
water to which he gave the name of Golfo de la Bal- 
ena, or " Gulf of the Whale." This is now the Gulf 
of Paria, lying between the west coast of Trinidad 
and the shores of Venezuela. Turning a long, sharp 
point that made the entrance so narrow, Columbus 
followed the coast of the island, and was surprised to 
find so near the equator a land of forests and palm 
trees, of luxuriant vegetation and abundant streams 
and springs of water. Of the people he said that 
they were " all of good stature, well made, and of 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 37 1 

very graceful bearing, with much and smooth 
hair." 

But he could not linger here, his thoughts being 
with the forlorn colony at Isabella, left so long in 
the care of his brother and possibly at the mercy of 
savages. As he made his way northward out of the 
gulf, to his left stretched the whole vast continent of 
South America, but he took it to be an insignificant 
island, and called it Zeta. He found the northern 
passage studded with rocky islands, like huge fangs, 
one rising to a height of 1000 feet, dividing it into 
channels with perilous currents, and he called it the 
Boca Drago, or " Dragon Mouth." Then he went 
his way across the Caribbean Sea, saw Trinidad no 
more, and knew not that he had looked slightingly 
upon the shores of a vast continent, which the Vene- 
tian Vespucci was to visit at this very spot the next 
year with Ojeda, one of his own lieutenants, and gain 
the credit of discovery. It was Amerigo Vespucci 
that gave the name of Venezuela, or " Little 
Venice," to the land of the Orinoco delta, and from 
him the designation of both western continents has 
been unjustly derived. 

The northern coast-line of Trinidad is fifty-three 
miles long, the eastern forty-eight, and the southern 
sixty-five ; and the western side of the island in a di- 
rect line is about forty-nine miles in extent, but at 
the north-west and south-west angles there are long 
projections inclosing the Gulf of Paria, and reaching 
within a few miles of the Venezuela coast, and these 
extend the northern and southern coast-lines. There 
is also a long projection to the north-east. But for 



3^^ THE WEST INDIES 

these extended corners the island would be nearly 
rectangular and not far from square. In its actual 
form the Spaniards likened it to an ox-hide. It has 
an area of 1754 square miles, which is about half that 
of Puerto Rico, and nearly three times that of Guade- 
loupe, the largest of the Caribbees. The northern 
coast is abrupt and craggy, and parallel to it runs a 
mountain range with a general altitude of 1500 to 
3000 feet, the culminating peak, Tucutche, being 
3100 feet high, and the Cerro de Aripo, in the north- 
east, 2644. This ridge is composed of metamorphic 
masses of argillaceous schist with steep escarpments 
toward the sea, and is continued through the islands 
of the Dragon Mouth into the ranges of the main- 
land. 

The principal islands of the north-west angle 
are Mono (Monkey), Huevos (Eggs), and Navios 
(Ships). The adjacent channels, or " bocas, " have 
the same names as these islands, and the outer and 
widest one is Boca Grande. The cape at the north- 
east corner of Trinidad is Point Galera, that at the 
south-east Galeota, and the long projection of the 
south-west is Cape Icacos. Some of the outlets of 
the Orinoco delta fall into the Gulf of Paria, dis- 
colouring its waters with mud ; and the channels of 
the Boca Sierpe are shifted and obstructed by alluvial 
deposits. There are some islets here, and the rock 
Soldado, white with sea-birds. Besides the rocky 
mountain range of the north, there is a solitary mass 
in the interior. Mount Tamana, 1028 feet high, and 
near the west coast Mount Naparima. Parallel with 
the southern coast is a low range of dunes and 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 373 

wooded elevations, mingled with tertiary rock, while 
the eastern shore has been filled out with sand and 
mud deposited from the vast volume of the Orinoco. 

The mountains of Trinidad are covered with dense 
forests, and in the interior are wide, grassy plains 
and savannas, like the llanos of Venezuela, with 
intervening tracts of woodland like those of Guiana. 
The land is distinctly South American in its aspect, 
in the vast variety of its trees, and in its general 
vegetable and animal life. Many of the trees afford 
valuable timber, and a large number have bark with 
poisonous or medicinal qualities. The great ceiba, 
with its shoots falling to the ground and taking root, 
and with a profusion of clinging parasites, is held in 
reverence by the superstitious blacks; some of the 
palms, with their smooth columns and great tufts of 
broad leaves, grow to one hundred and fifty feet in 
height ; and everywhere the rich soil and warm, 
humid climate produce a rank luxuriance of vines 
and plants, some with brilliant flowers, which over- 
run the face of the earth, save where the vigorous Para 
grass takes possession and monopolises the ground. 

A characteristic of Trinidad in its physical aspects 
is its mud volcanoes, and a unique peculiarity is the 
asphalt lake in the south-west. There is a muld vol- 
cano near the middle of the island, one hundred and 
thirty-five feet high, rising above a morass, locally 
called the Lagon Bouffe, but those near Cape Icacos 
and the asphalt lake are low conical hills surrounded 
by mangrove swamps. While mud gushes out, 
bringing lumps of bitumen and sulphur, and there 
is an appearance of boiling, the temperature is not 



374 THE WEST INDIES 

high. The asphalt lake of La Brea('' The Pitch ") 
is in the south-western peninsula, near the coast, and 
ninety feet above the sea-level. It is reached up a 
kind of bituminous glacier, has the appearance of 
an exposed coal-pit, nearly circular, and half a mile 
across, and is surrounded by woods in which tall 
palm trees are conspicuous. Even upon its surface 
are clumps of vegetation, but their existence is pre- 
carious. 

The contents of this huge receptacle of un- 
known depth are of a vegetable origin, like coal, 
lignite, and peat, and are in a state of instability on 
account of the warmth and of pressure from below, 
which causes the substance to rise in the middle and 
subjects it to a slow movement, breaking it into 
irregular masses, and producing crevices or channels, 
which are filled with water. As part of the mass is 
removed, its place is filled again by the pressure from 
below upon the plastic material, and the supply 
seems to be inexhaustible. It is mingled with a 
good deal of earth, and the soil about contains much 
of the pitch, which does not affect its fertility. Near 
by on the coast there are vents from which petroleum 
flows, and even below the water both oil and asphalt 
come to the surface. This spot is one of the marvels 
of the earth, and the pitch from La Brea, or La 
Braye, as the English call the place, goes to the 
composition of cement and of paving material in 
far-off cities. An American corporation has ob- 
tained a monopoly of the supply for a long term of 
years at $60,000 a year, and is growing rich in paving 
streets by the use of " Trinidad asphalt." 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 375 

This island is watered by many streams, and some 
of them are navigable by small craft for a consider- 
able distance. In the northern part, flowing west 
into the Gulf of Paria, is the Caroni ; and farther 
south the Gueracuero falls into Naparima Bay, an 
inlet from the gulf. The Nariva and Guartaro, or 
Ortoir, reach the eastern coast by a common delta. 
There is hardly any rain from November to April, 
but very heavy dews which keep up the vegetation, 
while from May to October there is much wet 
weather, with frequent sudden showers and occa- 
sional violent storms. The island is not subject to 
hurricanes, but has been shaken by earthquakes. 
The temperature is very equable, ranging from 75° 
to 85°, and rarely reaching 90° in the hottest months ; 
and the climate is regarded as very healthful. Ani- 
mal life is as varied and abundant as vegetable, and 
includes most of the species found in the northern 
part of South America. Among them are the pec- 
cary, armadillo, porcupine, and sloth, a tiger cat, 
several kinds of monkeys, and a gentle variety of 
deer. Birds are numerous, and some have brilliant 
plumage, including parrots, parrakeets, and hum- 
ming-birds ; but their ranks have been reduced by 
the insatiate demands of civilised society for feath- 
ered adornment. Insects are something too plenti- 
ful, and some of them are decidedly obnoxious to 
comfort; but they, too, are sometimes brilliant, even 
illuminating. Reptiles are many, but mostly in- 
nocuous. Turtles are less common than in former 
times, because they have been persistently robbed 
of their eggs, but the waters abound in fish of many 



376 THE WEST INDIES 

curious kinds, one of which, called the drum fish, 
makes music wherever it goes. 

Trinidad, being close to " the main," was not 
at first so completely neglected by the Spanish 
discoverers as most of their smaller possessions, 
and they held it longer. Finding no gold there, 
the most that they did with it for a long time was 
to get supplies of wood and water, and capture 
the poor natives for slaves. As they were Arawaks 
and not Caribs, their resistance was overcome with- 
out great difficulty. In 1588, the Spanish made 
a settlement and founded San Jose de Orufia, still 
known as San Josef, on the Caroni River, a few 
miles from the coast. Soon after that the Eng- 
lish began to make perturbing calls on the way to 
and from Guiana, and in 1595, Sir Walter Raleigh 
made the visit during which he professed to be 
so outraged at the cruel treatment of the natives 
that he captured San Josef, and considered whether 
the island was not worth keeping. Lured on by 
greater attractions, he concluded to leave it to the 
Spanish governor. Occasionally the corsairs gave 
the little settlement a scare by prowling into the 
gulf, but it was left pretty much to itself and must 
have been a lonesome place for a century or two. 
In 1783, the native population had been reduced to 
2032, and there were only one hundred and twenty- 
six white persons and six hundred and five negro 
slaves on the whole island, with its vast wealth of 
natural resources and attractions. Soon after that a 
Frenchman from Grenada, named Roume de St. 
Laurent, got from the Spanish authorities at Cara- 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 377 

cas a suspension of the edict which forbade foreign- 
ers to settle in Spanish possessions, and all " good 
Catholics" were thereafter permitted to dwell in 
Trinidad and own property. 

This brought settlers from the French islands, 
and when trouble came in Haiti after the French 
Revolution there were many emigrants from there. 
Then came the good governor, Don Josef Maria 
Chacon, who would not permit the inquisition or 
monastic orders to get a foothold, and insisted 
upon tolerating colonists from all quarters who 
would people and develop the island. The English 
came as well as others, the Spanish were soon in a 
minority, and Chacon had a troublesome time with 
his mixture of subjects. Immigration had been 
stimulated by grants of land, thirty-two acres for 
each person and sixteen more for each slave brought 
in. In 1796-97, when the difficulty with the French 
— royalist refugees and cantankerous republicans — 
was at its worst, and the English were settling mat- 
ters here and there in the West Indies, Admiral 
Harvey and General Abercrombie paid a visit to 
the Gulf of Paria, coming down from Martinique 
with 7000 troops. 

There was a Spanish admiral named Apodoca 
who took refuge with his ships in the deep Bay of 
Chaguaramas, and Governor Chacon was much dis- 
traught with the visit of so formidable an enemy. 
The upshot was surrender to the English, and 
Apodoca burnt his vessels rather than have them 
captured, thereby vindicating " Spanish honour," 
though the island was forever lost. Lieutenant- 



378 THE WEST INDIES 

Colonel Picton was left in charge, and had to use 
severe measures to put down anarchy and secure 
submission, and by the treaty of Amiens Trinidad 
was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity. The only 
stirring incident in its history after that occurred 
when Lord Nelson came down in 1805 on his chase 
for a French fleet that had gone the other way. It 
is reported that a solitary soldier in charge of the 
defences of the north coast, thinking it was an 
enemy, pitched his only gun over the cliffs, blew up 
his watch-tower, and went with all haste to warn the 
people of their danger. 

The English occupation began a new era for 
Trinidad, and pretty nearly all its growth and pro- 
gress is a matter of the present century. The popu- 
lation was nearly 40,000 in 1838, and in 1885 it was 
171,914, of which about 100,000 consisted of negroes 
and 50,000 of coolies, chiefly from India. Sugar 
planting was first introduced in 1787, and extended 
rapidly, but, the slave trade being abolished early in 
this century, Chinese coolies were imported in order 
to keep up with the demand for labour. The first 
Hindus were brought over in 1839, after the aboli- 
tion of slavery, under contract to labour seven and 
a half hours a day, six days in the week, for five 
years, at thirteen cents a day. Contracts could be 
renewed for one year or five years, and those who 
remained ten years in all were entitled to be returned 
to their own country at the charge of the contractor. 
The system of coolie contract-labour has been under 
government regulation and supervision, and is said 
to have worked well. The Hindus live in commun- 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 379 

ities by themselves, and preserve their habits, cus- 
toms, and traditions, and are undoubtedly better off 
than they ever were in India. They are an intelH- 
gent, frugal, and self-respecting people, and a large 
proportion of them remain as a permanent part of 
the population. Their women are especially fond 
of adorning themselves with jewelry, and the cus- 
tomary way of investing surplus savings is by turn- 
ing them into gold and silver ornaments, with which 
the persons of the female members of the family are 
richly decorated. 

A large part of the area of the island is still cov- 
ered with forests and uncultivated plains, hardly 
more than one eighth of the land being under culti- 
vation, and that mostly near the west coast, where 
the only seaports and nearly all the towns are situ- 
ated. This part of the island is a rolling country, 
with many sugar plantations, palm groves, cacao 
and fruit gardens, and provision grounds. The 
sugar industry has suffered here as in the other 
islands, but, while it was prosperous, the cotton, 
coffee, and tobacco for which the soil and climate 
were equally well adapted fell into neglect. Lat- 
terly the cultivation of cacao, which affords a spe- 
cially fine chocolate, has been on the increase, and 
coffee, tobacco, and fruits have received more atten- 
tion. It is only a question of adaptation to produce 
almost anything that belongs to a tropical land with 
an exceptionally rich soil and genial climate ; but the 
whites constitute barely one tenth of a population 
now estimated at 200,000, or more, and the coloured 
labour force 13 not altogether tractable in its freedom. 



380 THE WEST INDIES 

The Gulf of Paria affords a spacious harbour, but 
the only port of importance, and the capital and 
chief town of the colony, is Port of Spain, in the 
angle where the west coast turns along the promon- 
tory to the Boca Drago. There large vessels have 
to anchor a mile away from the wharves on account 
of a lack of depth in the water. There is deep water 
in Chaguaramas Bay, but the landward surroundings 
are unfavourable, and its beach is mainly a health 
and pleasure resort, like Mono Island near by. Port 
of Spain is a thriving city of 35,000 people, built 
mostly of stone, with broad, thickly shaded streets 
running up from the shore and intersected at right 
angles Avith cross streets. Back of it is a broad 
savanna called Queen's Park, having a fine race- 
track at one end, and beyond that is a large botan- 
ical garden filled with the trees and plants of the 
tropics and many exotics from Europe and America. 
In the midst of this spacious and splendid garden 
is the governor's palace. Spreading beyond these 
public grounds are the plantations, fields, gardens, 
and groves that furnish the products of the land, 
amid magnificent palms, great cedars and ceibas, 
and other trees that ornament the landscape, though 
in the interior long stretches of road may be found 
which are wholly unshaded by foliage and exposed 
to the sweltering tropic sun. 

Within the city are busy streets, some spacious 
public squares, and a few fine buildings of stone. 
The English cathedral stands on Brunswick Square 
and" the Roman Catholic cathedral on Marine Square, 
with which a popular promenade is connected. 
There are several other churches, an excellent club, 



TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD 38 1 

and many comfortable residences. Notwithstand- 
ing its tropical climate and its Spanish traditions, 
Port of Spain has much the air of a thriving Eng- 
lish town, and is on the whole well kept, though 
keeping the streets clear of unwholesome refuse is 
left chiefly to the black vultures. These ungainly 
and repulsive creatures perch upon the roofs^^og^ 
down into the roadways, halt gawkily about, pick- 
ing up garbage, and make themselves so familiar as 
to startle the stranger ; but they are under the protec- 
tion of the law, and seem to know it, on account of 
their useful public service. Near the city is an exten- 
sive barracks for the soldiers who are quartered here. 
It is only a few miles to the old Spanish capital, 
San Josef, which still brings the quaintness of the 
sixteenth century into the present time. Down 
the coast about thirty miles is the second city 
and seaport of the island, San Fernando, but its 
population hardly reaches 7000. Back of it, sloping 
up from the coast, is another region of plantations 
and fruitful groves, and nearby is the most char- 
acteristic Hindu village on the island, a point of 
special interest to visitors. It is ten miles farther 
down this western or gulf coast to La Braye, whence 
the asphalt shipments are made. The largest inland 
towns are Tacarigua, Arouca, and Arima, in the 
region of which Port of Spain is the outlet; and 
Montserrat and Prince's Town are attractive villages 
in the fruitful district back of San Fernando. These 
towns are largely points at which produce is collected 
to be sent to the seaports, and there is some sixty or 
seventy miles of railroad making the connections, 
built by the government. 



382 THE WEST INDIES 

Trinidad is a Crown colony, with very little recog- 
nition of the representative principle in its govern- 
ment. The governor is appointed by the sovereign, 
and chooses an executive council of three for him- 
self. The legislative council consists of fifteen 
members, of whom seven are public officials and the 
others are appointed on the selection of the planters 
and merchants. There are eight administrative dis- 
tricts : St. George and St. David in the north, 
Caroni, St. Andrew, Victoria, and Nariva in the 
central section, and St. Patrick and Mayaro in the 
south ; and two municipalities, Port of Spain and San 
Fernando. Port of Spain has a local council of six- 
teen members and San Fernando one of ten, elected 
by landholders worth £Ap a year or more. The 
public revenues of the colony, derived chiefly from 
customs duties, amount to about $2,500,000 a year. 
There is a public debt of about $3,000,000, incurred 
mostly in the construction of railroads. The annual 
value of exports exceeds $10,000,000, and the value 
of imports is about the same. There is a consider- 
able trade with Venezuela, and regular and frequent 
communication with England, with the other West 
Indies, and through them with the United States. 
Trinidad has a school system maintained by the 
government, which also gives aid to the church 
schools. There are two colleges. Queen's Royal 
College and the College of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion. The possibilities of production and of trade 
in this island are hardly less than those of Barbados 
in proportion to size. It has about the same popu- 
lation and more than ten times the area. 




CHAPTER XXXIX 

OFF THE VENEZUELA COAST 

OF the islands off the Venezuela coast and be- 
longing to the continental system of South 
America, other than Tobago and Trinidad, only the 
" Dutch islands " of Curasao, Buen Aire, and Aruba 
are commonly spoken of as part of the West Indies ; 
but a passing notice of those which originally be- 
longed to Spain and passed to the Republic of Vene- 
zuela when its independence was achieved, seems 
necessary to make the present account complete. 
Columbus discovered the island of Margarita when 
he left Trinidad in 1498. It is only eight miles 
from the mainland, and has an area of four hundred 
square miles. It is almost divided into two by a 
depression in the middle occupied by a lagoon. In 
the eastern or main part Mount Copei rises to an 
altitude of 4170 feet, and in the western and smaller 
section Mount Macanao attains a height of 4484 
feet. The name of the island is derived from the 
pearl banks on the southern shore, which in recent 
times have been virtually abandoned as no longer 
profitable. Similar banks exist on the small islands 
of Cabagua and Coche near by to the south. 

383 



384 THE WEST INDIES 

Margarita is so largely occupied by rocks, sand 
dunes, salt marshes, and the reefs that adorn its edges, 
that its people live chiefly by fishing and the handi- 
work of the women, who make for the Venezuela mar- 
ket cheapearthenware, cotton stuffs, and hats of straw 
and vegetable fibre. The population is less than 
40,000, and little more than that if we include Ca- 
bagua, Tortuga, and all the neighbouring isles. The 
capital is Asuncion, with a population of about 3000, 
and is the happy possessor of a " miraculous virgin 
adorned with a robe of pearls." The ports of Pam- 
patar, Pueblo de la Mar, and Pueblo del Norte are 
in the eastern section. The island was bestowed 
upon Marceto Villalobos in 1524, ravaged by the 
freebooter Lopez de Aguirre in 1561, attacked by 
the Dutch in 1662, and otherwise buffeted in troub- 
lous times, but Spain held on to it until the revolu- 
tion of Bolivar, when its fortitude and suffering in 
the rebel cause earned for it, with the neighbouring 
islands of Hermanos and Blanquilla, the title of 
Nueva Esparta, or " New Sparta," as a separate 
state in the new republic. 

The group of islets to the north-east, called the 
Testigos, or " Witnesses," was one of the resorts of 
Captain Teach, or" Blackbeard," the pirate, where 
he was long believed to have buried rich treasures, 
though nobody could find them. Blanquilla was 
once occupied by a French refugee from Guade- 
loupe, who set up a cotton industry there; but he 
was driven out by the Spanish, who left the island 
to the wild progeny of the cattle and dogs which 
had been introduced, Tortuga, to the west of Mar- 



OFF THE VENEZUELA COAST 385 

garita, is encircled by reefs called Tortuguillos, and 
has within its small area a little fishing village. 
Farther west, and part of what the Spaniards desig- 
nated as the " Leeward Islands," are the three clus- 
ters of Orchilla, Los Roques, and Aves, belonging 
to Venezuela. They are composed of rocks and 
reefs inhabited by lighthouse-keepers, and visited 
only by a few fishermen. There is another Aves, 
or Bird Island, in the eastern part of the Caribbean 
Sea, which is the culminating point of a ridge or 
bank, elsewhere submerged, running parallel with 
the main range of the Lesser Antilles. It is a lonely 
spot, occupied by sea-birds, and valuable only for 
guano deposits, and it lay practically unclaimed 
until 1856, since which time its possession has been 
conceded to Venezuela. 

Curagao is the headquarters of the Dutch colony 
in the West Indies. Not only the neighbouring 
islands of Buen Aire and Aruba, but Saba, St. 
Eustatius, and the Dutch part of St. Martin in the 
northern Caribbees, are dependencies, administered 
by deputies of the governor of Curasao. This island 
is nearly forty miles long, and has an area of two 
hundred and twenty square miles. Though it has 
nearly 30,000 inhabitants, about one third of them 
freed negroes and the rest a mixture of European 
nationalities with a preponderance of Dutch, its sur- 
face consists mostly of arid plains, with a few fertile 
glens and narrow spaces made productive by patient 
toil. There is a deficiency of water, and the people 
are dependent upon storing a supply from the rain- 
fall. They raise some maize, cotton, sugar-cane, 



386 THE WEST INDIES 

tobacco, and fruits and vegetables; but the chief 
exports of the island are salt, phosphate of lime, 
and the well known Curasao liqueur, of which the 
chief ingredient is derived from a peculiar variety 
of orange, the Citrus aiirajitium curassuviensis. 
But the larger business of Curagao is the transit 
trade of Venezuela and Colombia. 

It has a deep and well sheltered harbour on the 
south coast, the bay of Santa Ana, where the capi- 
tal, Willemstad, is situated. This port furnishes 
both vessels and crews for a large coasting trade, 
and also the bankers, many of them Jews, who 
make the advances and loans that give life to the 
traffic. Willemstad is distinctively a Dutch town, 
though its population is greatly mixed. Its houses, 
though built low and subject to the conditions of a 
tropical climate and the visitations of earthquakes, 
have a general resemblance to those of Amsterdam ; 
and the deep lagoon called the Schottegat, which 
extends inland from the bay, the passage between 
the city and the western suburb of ** Oberzijde," 
with its bridge of boats, and the overflowing swamps 
that spread through the environs, suggest the watery 
aspect of Holland. The entrance to the bay is de- 
fended by Fort Amsterdam and separate batteries; 
men-of-war often lie at anchor in the Schottegat, 
while the quays of the port of Curacao are generally 
crowded with merchant shipping. A peculiar pa- 
tois, derived from many tongues, is common in its 
streets. 

This island was discovered by Ojeda in 1499, ^^^ 
called the " Isle of Giants," whereby hang dubious 



OFF THE VENEZUELA COAST 387 

kgends of the stature of the original inhabitants. 
It was settled by Spaniards as early as 1527, but it 
had the happiness of possessing virtually no annals 
until it was captured by the Dutch in 1632, when 
they also took possession of the outlying islands of 
Buen Aire to the east and of Aruba to the west. 
The only interruption to their possession was dur- 
ing the Napoleonic wars, when the English captured 
Curasao, first in 1798 and again in 1806. It was re- 
stored to Holland in 18 14, when several dislocations 
in the West Indies were rectified. 

Buen Aire hardly has an existence independent of 
that of Curasao. It is some twenty miles off the 
shore of the latter to the north-east, and has an area 
of two hundred and fourteen square miles, but there 
are only about 5000 inhabitants. They cultivate 
the few productive acres in an arid waste and share 
in the fishing and seafaring pursuits of the neigh- 
bour island. Aruba is the westernmost of this 
group, and lies near the entrance to the Gulf of 
Maracaybo. Its area is only sixty-six square miles, 
and its population less than 8000 ; but it has more 
cultivated surface than either of the other Dutch 
islands. It suffers from lack of natural watercourses 
or springs, and depends upon cisterns and tidal wells. 
The people consist largely of half-breeds, partly de- 
scended from the aborigines, and there are some in- 
teresting relics of antiquity in the island in the form 
of rock inscriptions and objects wrought from stone 
or clay. The earthenware is commonly embellished 
with the heads of owls or frogs, and until recent 
times there were vestiges of old customs in the burial 



388 THE WEST INDIES 

of the dead in large cone-shaped receptacles. The 
island was formerly called Azua, from a shrub which 
grows there. It is said that the Spanish conquerors 
found a populous city upon it, rich in gold, hence 
the name Oruba, from " oro hubo," " here is gold " ; 
but the derivation is fanciful, and the correct form 
of the name is '* Aruba." There are still traces of 
gold in the rocks, and the natives may have accu- 
mulated treasures when the Spaniards broke through 
to appropriate them. This island is said by geolo- 
gists and naturalists to have been the latest of the 
group to be separated from the mainland, and it has 
some animal species, including a variety of frog, a 
rattlesnake, and a parrakeet, which have disappeared 
from Buen Aire and Curagao, but are still found on 
the continent. 




T 



CHAPTER XL 

THE WEST INDIAN ENIGMA 

HE unsubmerged parts of what seems in the 
remote geological ages to have been a vast 
bridge connecting the Atlantic side of the two 
American continents have been for four centuries 
the scene of one of the most interesting and instruct- 
ive" continuous performances" in human history. 
There are signs that the long drama may be entering 
upon a new phase with accelerated action. 

Looking back, we see first the European explorer, 
dimly convinced of the earth's rotundity and of the 
possibility of reaching the " gorgeous East " by an 
easier and safer route, if he will only sail boldly to 
the westward. He gropes bewildered among tropi- 
cal islands, unconscious that a continent hitherto 
unknown to his side of the world and an ocean far 
wider than that he has crossed lie between him and 
the object of his quest. Intercepted here, he pre- 
pares the way for a new empire to be founded by the 
proud and chivalrous, the " most Christian," power 
of Spain. A dominant purpose, devoutly cherished, 
is to extend a beneficent sway and a saving faith ; 

389 



390 THE WEST INDIES 

but that purpose is lost in the conflict of selfish im- 
pulses and motives aroused in mere human nature 
placed in new conditions. 

On this stage one race of men, being, or assuming 
to be, in an advanced stage of civilisation, comes in 
contact with an " inferior," or more backward race; 
and, instead of " converting" it or elevating it, or 
even attempting to bring it forward to its own state 
of advancement, it proceeds to rob, to reduce to serv- 
itude, to slaughter, and finally to exterminate the 
hapless people who obstruct the pathway of " pro- 
gress." This was not peculiar to the Spaniards. 
What they did to the mild and unresisting Arawak 
in the sixteenth century, the English and French 
did to the fierce and self-asserting Carib a hundred 
years later. Nor was it peculiar to these islands or 
to the period of their first occupation by Europeans. 
The same process of plunder and extirpation went 
on where the white man and the Indian came in con- 
tact on the North American continent, and we can- 
not confidently proclaim that it is ended yet. Is 
it the necessary consequence of the meeting of su- 
perior and inferior races of men on the same ground ? 

An alternative to extermination was long exhibited 
on this West Indian stage — slavery, or subjection. 
The Europeans would not, perhaps could not, lift 
up the aborigines and take them along in the career 
of human progress, and so, being confined within 
narrow limits, they ground their life out ; but they 
had seized possession of a rich tropical land, needing 
labour inured to the climate to extract the riches 
which they coveted. They did not hesitate to drag 



THE WEST INDIAN ENIGMA 39 1 

another *' inferior race " from its native soil in Africa 
and compel it to do their work. They did not em- 
ploy it, they did not attempt to improve or elevate 
it, or prepare it to advance and share their destiny. 
They simply enslaved it and used it to serve their 
own ends precisely as they would use cattle. Negro 
slavery in America was planted in the West Indies 
and transplanted to the British colonies in North 
America, to become the heritage of the United 
States, " the land of freedom." How this relation 
of the races worked is known by experience and 
observation to a generation still surviving, and 
there are living Christians who sincerely regret its 
extinction. 

It is surely an evidence of progress in the white 
man that slavery has been extinguished, even where 
it was so long regarded as essential to the mainte- 
nance of Christian civilisation ; but how has it left the 
relation of the "superior" and the ''inferior" 
races ? We see the anomaly of this great group of 
islands, almost connecting the eastern shores of the 
two Americas, still divided in possession among 
several nations on the other side of the Atlantic. 
They were the cradle of all America, and they are 
and of right ought to be peculiarly American ; but 
for the most part they are still, or were until the 
other day, subject to European powers. Is this 
necessarily to continue on account of the relation of 
the races and the incompatibility of that relation 
with the principles of American freedom and of 
American government ? 

Cuba has been made independent, and may remain 



392 THE WEST INDIES 

independent; but a majority of the people of Cuba 
have long been of the white race, and where that race 
predominates it rules. The people of Cuba may be 
capable of self-government, or may become so. 
Puerto Rico has com.e into the possession of the 
United States by the fortunes of war, but a still 
larger proportion of its people are descendants of 
white settlers. They are mostly of Spanish origin, 
and are ill-prepared to take a full share in their own 
government ; but so long as the island remains in a 
territorial condition, the race question will be less 
serious in its government than it is in some of the 
oldest States of the Union. 

In Jamaica and the other islands, a vast majority 
of the people are of the coloured race. They are no 
longer in slavery, but they are distinctly a subject 
race. In the English colonies, there is no pretence 
of equality, political or social, and no recognition of 
a policy of preparation for the exercise of equal 
rights. Such representation as is permitted is based 
upon a suffrage so qualified by property-ownership 
as to exclude nearly all the negroes from its exercise ; 
but to exclude them effectually from all share in the 
government only the slightest application is given to 
the representative principle. Each colony and each 
island, however populous, is governed by a small 
number of Englishmen, sent out by the home gov- 
ernment to exercise the prerogatives of the Crown, 
with much less restraint than they are subject to in 
Great Britain. This is because the people of the 
islands are frankly assumed to be incapable of self- 
government, and there is no thought of giving them 



THE WEST INDIAN ENIGMA 393 

the right. The principles of representative govern- 
ment are applied to English colonies which are 
peopled by Englishmen, or at least by white men, 
but those which are inhabited by ** inferior races," 
or in which any inferior race predominates, are 
" Crown colonies," and are ruled arbitrarily by the 
home government through appointed agents. The 
superior race rules, and the position of the inferior 
race is one of subjection. There is nothing in the 
English theory of government which demands a 
recognition of equal rights or requires a policy of 
giving political power to all the people and fitting 
them for its exercise. Jamaica may remain a Crown 
colony indefinitely and be practically governed by 
a dozen men sent from England, and its%race c[ues- 
tion will be answered by the military power. 

Are these islands capable of self-government, or 
can the American principle of government by the 
people be safely applied to them ? Haiti has been 
answering that question nearly all this century, and 
Santo Domingo has been giving a somewhat differ- 
ent answer a greater part of the same time. A 
population almost wholly negro has been left to the 
experiment of self-government in Haiti. It has been 
in form a republic, a kingdom, again a republic, an 
empire, and a republic yet again ; but at no time 
have the people governed themselves. They have 
been ruled by a black autocrat or a coloured oli- 
garchy, distinguished by various degrees of incapac- 
ity and despotism ; and if there has been progress or 
improvement, it has been very slow. In Santo Do- 
mingo, with a larger intermixture of white blood, 



394 THE WEST INDIES 

but Still a predominance of the " inferior race," 
there has been a better condition of things, but not 
a very promising degree of success in the experi- 
ment. It has been very far from real self-govern- 
ment by the people, and almost equally far from 
efficient and progressive government. 

Here, then, is the West Indian enigma. Is the 
American soil first occupied and longest held by 
the white man, to continue subject to alien powers 
and impervious to what we hold to be the American 
spirit in the government of men ? Is it to present 
a permanent spectacle of two races of mankind un- 
able to live together unless one is master and the 
other slave, or one ruling and the other subject ; or 
is it to become the theatre for the solution of the 
race problem by elevating and improving the inferior 
and reconciling the proud spirit of the superior to a 
relation of fraternity, a condition of equality, a 
chance of liberty, through mutual helpfulness ? 

The old Spanish colonies on the continent have 
been working out the experiment of self-govern- 
ment, with many failures but perceptible progress. 
They are slowly undergoing a process of American- 
ising, though Latin Americanism is not the same as 
Anglo-Saxon Americanism, and it will be long be- 
fore the two blend into one. But the Spanish- 
American republics are little troubled with the race 
question. Cuba, with the drawback of recent servi- 
tude to Spanish power and the traditions of long 
subjection, has now the negro factor in its problem 
of free government. 

The United States is struggling with the race 



THE WEST INDIAN ENIGMA 395 

problem comparatively free from other difficulties; 
and as a nation it is acting upon the theory that the 
races can and must live together on a footing of 
political equality. No edict of a paper constitution 
can suddenly subdue the determination of the white 
to rule, or lift the black to an equal capacity for ruling ; 
and in States where the ** inferior race " is so strong 
in numbers as to threaten to gain control, means are 
found to keep it in subjection in spite of the let- 
ter and the plain intent of written constitutions. 
Though the sudden transformation from the help- 
lessness of abject servitude to a safe exercise of 
political power, boldly risked as it was by a deliber- 
ate constitutional change, is made impossible by 
laws of nature that cannot be amended, the adop- 
tion of the theory induces the slow and gradual 
process of adjustment to it in practice. We must 
educate, elevate, and improve the coloured citizen, 
and solve the race question in our States by har- 
mony, and not antagonism or subjection. 

Can this process be carried into the West Indian 
islands, where the African race was planted in slav- 
ery by the white man, where it flourishes physically 
as the white race does not, and where it seems des- 
tined to predominate in numbers because the clim- 
ate is congenial to its blood ? Is the tropical climate 
a bar to the presence of American energy and enter- 
prise, and to the diffusion of American ideas and the 
true American spirit, which might in process of time 
develop a capacity for popular government and dis- 
place the bonds of European subjection with the ties 
of American brotherhood ? It is not a question of 



396 



THE WEST INDIES 



equality of capacity or of condition, but of equality 
of rights and of opportunity, under which the power 
and influence of superiority would be legitimately 
exercised in government by the consent and for the 
benefit of all, and there would be no pretension of 
a prerogative inherent in the blood of a race, any 
more than in an inherited caste. 

The United States has taken possession of the 
island of Puerto Rico, and on that outpost of the 
Antilles the genius of America encounters a sphinx 
which propounds the enigma of the future destiny 
of all the West Indies. 




/ 



INDEX 



Abaco, Great and Little, 3, 119 
Abercrombie, Lord, attacks San 

Juan, 269 
Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, recovers 

St. Lucia, 342 ; takes Trinidad, 

377 . 

Aborigines, general characteris- 
tics, 25-30 

Acadians, 249 

Acklin, 4, 122 

Adamanay, 227 

Aguadilla, 262, 266, 276 

Aguado, Juan, 45 

Agueynaba, 266, 267 

Aguirre, Lopez de, 384 

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 328, 
346 

Albemarle, Lord, grantee of 
islands in Bahamas, 77 ; com- 
mander at capture of Havana, 

95 

Alexander VI., Pope, bull divid- 
ing Spanish and Portuguese 
possessions, 51, 71 

American Mediterranean, 2, 259, 

343 _ 

Andros, position, 3 ; description, 

121 
Anegada, one of the Virgin 

Islands, 8, 294, 295 
Anguilla, situation and extent, 

8 ; part of Leeward Islands 



Colony, 290 ; description, 303, 

303 

Anguilletta, 303 

Annotto, 200 

Antigua, situation and extent, 9 ; 
origin of name, 41 ; taken by 
English, 75 ; captured by 
French, 93 ; part of Leeward 
Islands Colony, 290 ; descrip- 
tion and history, 306-309 

Antilles, origin of the term, 4 

Antonio, Cape, 128, 130, 141 

Apodoca, Spanish admiral in 
Trinidad, 377 

Arawaks, origin and character, 
25 ; islands inhabited by, 25 ; 
in Puerto Rico, 282 ; in Toba- 
go, 368 ; in Trinidad, 376 

Archipelago, of Columbus, or 
American, 2 ; how formed, 13- 
16 ; first inhabitants, 24 

Arecibo, 262, 275 

Ariguanabo, lake in Cuba, 132 

Arroyo, 262, 277, 284 

Artibonite, river of Haiti, 230 

Aruba, situation and extent, 12 ; 
taken by the Dutch, 73 ; de- 
scription, 387 

Ascension, name given by Colum- 
bus to Grenada, 46, 351 

Asphalt lake, Trinidad, 374 

Aux Cayes, 227, 234, 249 

Ayscue, Admiral, at Barbados, 
93. 360 



397 



398 



INDEX 



Ayuntamiento, town council, in 

Cuba, 146 
Azua de Compostela, 252 



B 



Baez, Buenaventura, 255, 256 

Bahama Channel, 15 

Bahamas, extent, 3 ; political 
connection, 7 ; area and popu- 
lation, 12 ; general structure, 

14 ; connection with continent, 

15 ; original inhabitants, 26 ; 
English occupation, 76 ; de- 
scription and history, 11 5-127 ; 
resources and products, 117, 
i]8 ; the different islands, 119- 
123 ; first settlements, 125 ; 
industries and trade, 126; 
government, 126, 127 

Bahia Honda, port of Cuba, 156 

Baianet, 227 

Balboa, discovers the Pacific, 69 

Balcarres, Lord, suppresses ma- 
roons, 214 

Baracoa, first settlement in 
Cuba, 56 ; the present town, 
161 ; landing of insurgent 
chiefs, 183 

Barahona, 252 

Barbados, position, 6 ; extent, 
11; first colonised, 75, 78; 
political revolt, 93 ; slavery in, 
105, IT 3; separate colony, 228 ; 
effect of volcanic eruption in 
St. Vincent, 344 ; description, 
355-357 ; history, 357-361 ; 
people and government, 362- 
364 ; education, 364 ; capital, 
364, 365 ; hurricanes, 366 

Barbuda, situation and extent, 9 ; 
first settled, 75 ; part of Lee- 
ward Islands Colony, 290 ; 
description and history, 305, 
306 

Bartholomew, brother of Colum- 
bus, 45, See also Colon, 
Bartolorae 

Basin, or Bassin, see Basse End 

Basle, treaty of, 238, 255 



Basse End, 300, 301 

Basses-Terres, 304 

Basse-Terre, capital of St. Christ- 
opher, 314 ; section of 
Guadeloupe, 318 ; capital of 
Guadeloupe, 321 

Batabano, port of Cuba, 156 

Bayamo, town in Cuba, relics of 
aborigines, 27 ; caves near, 
131 ; revolutionary conspiracy, 
177 ; battle, 185 

Bayamon, town in Puerto Rico,. 

275 
Beauharnais, Marquis de, 337 
Behechio, cacique of Xaragua, 

Bernini Keys, 120 

Bequia, 348 

Berry Isles, 120 

" Bims," " Bimshire," 365 

" Blackbeard," the pirate, 87- 
89 ; headquarters in the 
Bahamas, 125 ; resort off 
Margarita, 384 

" Black Eagle," 173 

Black River, 203 

" Black Warrior," 175 

Blanco, Gen. Ramon, 190-198 

Blanquilla, 384 

Blockade of Cuban ports, 194 

Bluefields Bay, 200 

Blue Mountains, 201 

Bobadilla, Francisco de, super- 
sedes Columbus, 47 ; ship-' 
wrecked, 47, 48 

Boca Drago, 371 

Boca Serpiente, 370 
' Bohio, native name for a part of 
j Haiti, 39, 231 
! Borinquen, native name for 
i Puerto Rico, 31, 54, 266 
j Bottom, town of, 310 
I " Boucan," 81 

Boyer, General, 241-243, 255 

Brazil, Portugal's title to, 51 

Breda, treaty of, 94, 309, 313 

Bridgetown, 359, 364 

Broa Bay, 142 

Brooke, Gen. J. R., 197, 284- 
286 



INDEX 



399 



Brooks, Henry, 183 
Buccaneers, origin of term, 81, 

82 ; character and exploits, 

82-86 ; headquarters at Port 

Royal, 210 ; resort at St. 

Thomas, 296 
Buccaneers' Fort, 142 
Buchanan, President, proposal to 

purchase Cuba, 178 
Buen Aire, situation and extent, 

12 ; taken by the Dutch, 73 ; 

description, 387 
Byron, Admiral, 96 



Cabanas, port of Cuba, 156 

Cabral, Jose Maria, 256 

Cadiz, Columbus arrives at, 45, 

Caicos, the, relics of aborigines, 
27 ; description, 122 ; politi- 
cal connection, 127 

Caimanera, landing United States 
marines at, 196 

Calleja Isasi, captain - general 
of Cuba, 184 

Camaguey, native name of Puerto 
Principe, Cuba, 152 

Campos, General Martinez, gov- 
ernor-general of Cuba, 178, 
181, 184-187 

Canary Islands, visited by Co- 
lumbus, 35 ; emigrants to 
Cuba, 156 

Cannibalism, practised by Caribs, 
32 

Canovas del Castillo, 190 

Caparra, 267 

Cape Beata, 226 

Cape Engano, 226 

Cape Haitien, 226, 249 

Cape Icacos, 372 

Cape Rojo, 277 

Capesterre, 313, 319 

Cape Tiburon, 225 

Cape Verde, visited by Colum- 
bus, 46 

Capote, Domingo Mendez, 191, 



Caracas, earthquake, 343 

Caraibe, 219 

Cardenas, 157 

Cariacu, 349 

Caribbean Sea, how formed, 2 ; 
once a plain, 13 ; depth, 15 ; 
submarine division, 15 

Caribbees, 7 ; visited by English 
explorers, 72 ; granted to the 
Earl of Carlisle, 75 ; first 
French colonists, 78 ; contests 
for possession, 92-102 ; appli- 
cation of the term, 287 

Caribs, origin and character, 25 ; 
islands inhabited by, 25 ; de- 
scription, 31 ; habits and 
customs, 32-34 ; Columbus 
first meets, 41 ; attack upon 
Puerto Rico, 268 ; in Antigua, 
308 ; in Dominica, 327 ; in 
Martinique, 332 ; in St. Vin- 
cent, 346 ; in Grenada, 351 ; 
in Tobago, 368 

Carib's Leap, the, 351 

Carlisle, Earl of, grant of 
Caribbees, 75 ; governor of Ja- 
maica, 215 ; grant of Barba- 
dos, 359 

Carlisle Bay, 359 

Cartagena, 68 ; attacked by buc- 
caneers, 85 

'Casa Blanca, fort at Havana, 
154 ; house of Ponce de Leon, 

275 

Casa Colon, 55, 253 

Cassard, Jacques, 87 

Castellanos, Adolfo Jimenez, 198 

Castries, 338, 340, 341 

Cathay, Cuba thought by Colum- 
bus to be part of, 44 

Catherine Hill, 202 

Cat Island, position, 3 ; descrip- 
tion, 131 

Cauto, river in Cuba, 131 

Cayey, 277 

Caymans, 5, 201 

Cayo Romano, 133 

Cayos de las Doce Leguas, 134 

Central America, as Spanish pos- 
session, 72 



400 



INDEX 



Cerro de Aripo, 372 
Cervera, Spanish admiral, 195 
Cespedes, Carlos Manuel de, 177, 

173 
Chacon, Jose Maria, 377 
Chaguaramas Bay, 380 
Charles I., of England, grants 

Caribbees to Earl of Carlisle, 

75 

Charles II., of England, makes 
grants to Lord Willoughby, 
75 ; loyalty of Barbados to, 
360 

Charlestown, 316 

Charlotte Amalia, 295 

Charlotte Town, 327 

Chorrera, Torre de, 142 

Christianstaed, 300 

Christophe, Haitian general, 240, 
241 

Cibao, interior district of Haiti, 
29, 39, 227 

Ciboneys, or Cebuneys (also Sib- 
oneys), native tribe in Cuba, 27 

Cienfuegos, 158 

Cinco Villas, district of Cuba, 
141, 152 

Cipango, Columbus's misconcep- 
tions regarding, 2, 39 

Cisneros y Betancourt, Salvador, 

178, 185 

Cleveland, President, message 
relating to Cuba, 192 

Climate, general character, 21 ; 
of Bahamas, 118 ; of Cuba, 
138 ; of Jamaica, 206-208 ; of 
Haiti, 232, 233 ; of Puerto 
Rico, 264, 265 ; of Barbados, 
357 ; of Trinidad, 375 

Coamo, 262, 276 

Coanabo, cacique of Cibao or 
Maguana, 42, 52, 228 

Cobre, mountains in Cuba, 129 

Cobre River, 203 

Codrington, 305, 306 

Codrington College, 364 

Coffee, first cultivation, 105 ; in- 
troduced into Martinique, 332 

Colombo, Cristoforo, Italian 
name of Columbus, 35 



Colon, Bartolome, or Bartolo- 
meo, brother of Columbus, 45, 
46, 253 

Colon, Cristobal, Spanish form 
of name of Columbus, 35 

Colon, Diego, son of Columbus, 
governor of Hispaniola, 55 ; 
sends out colonising expedi- 
tions, 55-57 ; burial place, 254 

Colon, town in Cuba, 157 

Colubanama, cacique of Higuey, 
52 

Columbus, Christopher, miscon- 
ception as to the Indies, 1,2; 
original purpose of voyages, 
24 ; first voyage of discovery, 
25-40 ; second voyage, 41-45 ; 
third voyage, 45-47 ; fourth 
voyage, 47-50 ; extent of ex- 
plorations, 50 ; error regard- 
ing Cuba, 147 ; memorials 
of, 253 ; remains of, 254 ; 
first landing at Puerto Rico, 
266 ; names the Virgins, 293 ; 
names Antigua, 308 ; lands on 
Guadeloupe, 322 ; discovers 
Dominica, 327 ; discovers Mar- 
tinique, 330 ; discovers St. 
Lucia, 341 ; discovers St. Vin- 
cent, 346 ; discovers Grenada, 
35 1 ; discovers Trinidad, 370 ; 
mistake about South America, 
371 ; discovers Margarita, 383 

Concepcion de la Vega, 252 

Congress, U.S., resolution relat- 
ing to Cuba, 194 ; declaration 
of war with Spain, 195 

Coolies, in Jamaica, 217 ; in 
Martinique, 334 ; in St. Vin- 
cent, 347 ; in Trinidad, 378, 

379 
Coral polyps, work among the 

islands, 22 ; in the Bahamas, 

116; on coast of Barbados, 

356 
Coral reefs, on Cuban coast, 

133-135 ; on the coast of Haiti, 

227 ; on coast of Barbados, 

356 
Corozal, 262 



INDEX 



401 



Corsairs and rovers, 61, 63-68 

Cortez, Hernando, among first 
colonists in Cuba, 56, 141 

Cotton, first cultivation, 104 

Courteen, Sir William, 359 

Crittenden, Colonel, 175 

Cromwell, sends fleet to West 
Indies, 79 ; suppresses disor- 
der in Barbados, 360 

Crooked Island, position, 4 ; Isa- 
bella of Columbus, 37 ; de- 
scription, 122 

Crooked Island Passage, 122 

Crusoe's island, 369 

Cruz, Cape, 129 

Cuba, early misconceptions re- 
garding, 2 ; position and ex- 
tent, 5 ; political connection, 
7 ; aboriginal inhabitants, 27 ; 
discovery by Columbus, 38 ; 
southern coast explored, 44 ; 
first colony, 56 ; taken by the 
English, 95 ; slavery in, 108- 
112 ; physical characteristics, 
128-140 ; mountains, 129, 130 ; 
rivers, 131-133 ; reefs and 
keys, 134 ; ports, 134, 135 ; 
minerals, 135 ; natural pro- 
ducts, 136 ; animals, 137 ; cli- 
mate, 138, 139 ; sections, 140 ; 
history and government, 141- 
150 ; early settlements, 141 ; 
different names, 142 ; first fort- 
ifications, 143 ; establishment 
of plantations, 144 ; progress 
and growth, 144 ; powers of 
governor-general, 145 ; system 
of administration under the 
Spanish, 146-150 ; provinces, 
151, 152 ; judicial districts, 
153 ; cities and towns, 153- 
162 ; population, 163-165 ; 
economic conditions, 165-168 ; 
commerce, 168, 169 ; education 
and religion, 1 69-1 71 ; revolu- 
tionary movements, 1 72-1 81 ; 
" Black Eagle," 173 ; annexa- 
tion, 174 ; Lopez expeditions, 
174 ; "Black Warrior," 175 ; 
" Ostend Manifesto," 176; 



oppressive government, 177 ; 
insurrection of 1868-78, 177 ; 
court-martial of Havana stu- 
dents, 179 ; barbarities of 
Valmaseda, 179 ; X\\^Virginius 
affair, 179, 180; remonstrances 
of United States Government 
180 ; treaty of El Zanjon, 181 ; 
renewed oppression, 182 ; in- 
surrection of 1895-98, 183 ; 
organisation of provisional 
government, 184 ; military 
operations, 185, 186 ; policy of 
Martinez Campos, 186 ; Gen. 
Weyler's campaign, 187; 
Maceo in the west, 188 ; death 
of Maceo, 1S9 ; Gomez retires 
to the east, 189 ; a campaign 
of devastation, 1S9, 190 ; the 
"reconcentrados,"i90; Blanco 
supersedes Weyler, 190 ; policy 
of pacification, 190, 191 ; Cu- 
ban constitution, 191 ; message 
of President Cleveland, 192 ; 
message of President McKin- 
ley, 192, 193 ; the Maine blown 
up, 193 ; special message of 
President McKinley, 194 ; res- 
olution of American Congress, 
194 ; declaration of war, 195 ; 
Spanish fleet at Santiago, 195 ; 
American troops land near 
Santiago, 196; battles on land 
and sea, 196, 197 ; surrender 
of Santiago and terms of peace, 
197 ; Spain evacuates island, 
197 ; American occupation, 
197 ; preparation for independ- 
ent government, 198 ; end of 
Spanish sovereignty in West- 
ern world, 198 

Cubitas, caves of, 131 ; capi- 
tal of Cuban revolutionists, 
185 

Cudjo, chief of maroons, 212 

Culebra, 6, 260, 277 

Curafao, situation and extent, 
12 ; first settled, 73 ; taken by 
the Dutch, 92 ; description, 
385, 386 



402 



INDEX 



Currents, atmospheric, produc- 
tion of trade-winds and hurri- 
canes, 19-21 

Currents, oceanic, effect among 
the islands, 17 ; production of 
Gulf Stream, 18 

Cushing, Caleb, American Min- 
ister at Madrid, 180 



D 



Daiquiri, 196 

Danish Islands, 80, 295-299 

Darien, limit of Columbus's ex- 
plorations, 48 ; limit of Spanish 
Main, 60 

Denmark, islands belonging to, 
8, 80 ; abolishes slave trade, 
109 ; emancipates slaves, iii ; 
description of the islands be- 
longing to, 295-298 

Deseada, Spanish name of De- 
sirade, 41, 321 

Desirade, situation and extent, 

9 ; discovery, 41, 321 
Dessalines, Haitian general, 240, 

241 
Deux Mamelles, 319 
Diamond Rock, 334 
Diaz, discoverer of river Ozama, 

47 
Districts (judicial) of Cuba, 153 
" Dogs, The," rocks at head of 

the Caribbees, 8, 302 
Dominica, situation and extent, 

10 ; origin of name, 41 ; first 
attempt to take possession, 77 ; 
contest for, 92, 94, 97 ; naval 
battle near, 98 ; part of Lee- 
ward Islands Colony, 290-292 ; 
description, 325-327 ; history, 

327-329 

Dominican Republic, see Santo 
Domingo, Republic of 

Don Christopher's Cove, 49 

Dragon Mouth, 371 

Drake, Francis, accompanies 
Hawkins on slave-trading trip, 
66 ; privateering expeditions, 
66-68 ; attack on Santo Do- 



mingo, 67, 234 ; attack on 
San Juan, 268 ; death, 68 

Dry River, 203 

Duarte, Juan Pablo, 244 

Dumas, Alexandre, 249 

"Dumb Dog," 28, 118, 137 

Dunmore Town, 120 

Duparquet, governor of Mar- 
tinique, 351 

Duplessis, French adventurer, 
77, 322 

Dutch, the, send trading vessels 
to islands, 68, 73 ; take pos- 
session of St. Eustatius and 
Saba, 75 ; Cura9ao, 92 ; final 
share, 102 

" Dutch West Indies," 6, 11, 
73 ; slavery in, iii, 112 ; Saba 
and St. Eustatius, 310, 311 ; 
Cura9ao, Buen Aire, and 
Aruba, 383-388 



Earl of Carlisle, receives grant 
of Caribbees, 75 ; governor of 
Jamaica, 215 ; grantee of Bar- 
bados, 359 

Earthquakes, at Port Royal, 210, 
211 ; in Haiti, 233, 248 ; in 
Antigua, 309 ; in Venezuela, 

343 

Edwards, Bryan, statement re- 
garding slave trade, 105 

Egmont, 352 

El Caney, 161, 196 

El Dorado, legend of, 60 ; search 
for, 69 

Eleuthera, position, 3 ; descrip- 
tion, 120 

El Zanjon, treaty of, 181 

English Harbour, 307 

Equatorial current, cause and 
effect, 17 

Esnambuc, French adventurer, 
visits St. Kitt's, 74, 312 ; takes 
Martinique, 77, 332 

Espaiiola, name given by Colum- 
bus to island of Haiti, 39, 
255 



INDEX 



403 



Esperanza, 192 

Esquivel, Juan de, takes posses- 
sion of Jamaica, 55, 209 

Etang du Vieux Bourg, 353 

Evangel ita, name given by Co- 
lumbus to the Isle of Pines, 

134, 141 

" Ever Faithful Isle," origin of 
term, 145 

Eyre, Governor, suppresses in- 
surrection in Jamaica, 218 



Fajardo, 260, 262, 277 
Falmouth, 200, 222 
Fauna of islands in general, 22 
Fer-de-lance, the, 320, 340 
Ferdinand, King of Spain, de- 
sire for conversion of heathen, 
53 ; authorises making slaves 
of Lucayans, 54 
Fernandina, name given by Co- 
lumbus to Long Island, 37 ; 
name of Cuba at one time, 143 
Fichilingos, 368 
Filibuster, origin of term, 83 
Fish, Hamilton, U. S. Secretary 

of State, 180 
Flora of islands in general, 22 
Florida, 2 ; as Spanish posses- 
sion, 72 ; visited by Ponce de 
Leon, 268 
Florida Straits, 15 
Flushingers, in Tobago, 368 
Formidable, flagship of Admiral 

Rodney, 98, 333 
Fort Amsterdam, 386 
Fort-de-France Bay, 330 
Fort-de-France, city, 335 
Fort Gustave, 305 
Fort William, 304 
Fortune Island, 122 
France, contests title of Spain 
to islands, 71 ; contends' for 
possession in the Caribbees, 
92-102 ; establishes colony on 
Haiti, 235 ; share in St. Mar- 
tin, 303 ; takes Guadeloupe, 
323 ; Martinique, 332 



Freebooter, 83 

Froude, J. A., on origin of 
" Barbados," 358 



Galeota, Cape, 372 

Garcia, Calixto, 188, 192, 198 

Garcia, Manuel, 183 

" Gardens of the King," 133 

" Gardens of the Queen," 44, 
48, 134 

Geffrard, General Fabre, 244 

George Tow^n, 352 

Gibara, first landing-place of 
Columbus in Cuba, 38, 161 

Gibaros, 282 

Golfo de la Balena, 370 

Golfo de las Flechas, 40 

Gomez, Maximo, 183, 192 

Gonaive, Gulf of, 225 

Gonzalez, Ignacio, 256 

Gordon, leader of insurrection in 
Jamaica, 218 

Gordon, General W. W., 285 

Government, of Bahamas, 126 ; 
of Cuba, 145-149 ; of Jamaica, 
215, 219; of Haiti, 246; of 
Puerto Rico, 170, 271 ; of 
Windward Islands Colony, 
289 ; of Leeward Islands Col- 
ony, 290-293 ; of Gaudeloupe, 
324 ; of Martinique, 336 ; of 
Barbados, 359-363 ; of Trini- 
dad, 382 

Grand Bay, 304 

Grand Etang, 350 

Grande-Terre, 319 

Grand Khan, misconceptions of 
Columbus about the, 2, 38, 
48 

Gran Piedra, La, mountain in 
Cuba, 130 

Grant, President, message on 
Cuba, 181 

Grasse, Count de, French ad- 
miral, battle with Rodney, 96, 

98, 333 
Great Abaco, 3, 119 
Great Bahama, 3, 119 ; 



404 



INDEX 



Great Britain, contests title of 
Spain to islands, 71 ; contends 
for possessions, 92-102 

Great Cayemite, 227 

Greater Antilles, what constitute, 
4 ; area and population, 12 ; 
connection with continent, 15; 
separation, 16 

Great Exuma, position, 4 ; de- 
scription, 121 

Great River, 203 

Green Island, 200 

Grenada, situation and extent, 
II ; discovery, 46 ; first settled, 
78 ; contests over, 95-99 ; part 
of Windward Islands Colony, 
288, 289 ; description, 349- 
354 ; history, 351, 352 ; har- 
bours, 352, 353 ; government 
and people, 353, 354 

Grenadines, situation and extent, 
II ; part of Windward Islands 
Colony, 288, 289 ; description, 
348, 349 

Grenville Bay, 352 

Grey, Sir John, 323 

Gros Islet, 333, 338 

Grosse Montague, 319 

Guacanagari, cacique in Haiti, 
39,42 

Guadeloupe, situation and extent, 
9 ; origin of name, 41 ; first 
occupation, 77 ; contests for 
possession, 92, 94, 95, 99 ; 
description, 318-322 ; history, 
322, 323 ; population and gov- 
ernment, 324 

Guaimaro, 178 

Guajaibon, Pan de, 130 

Guanabacoa, city of Cuba, 156 

Guanahani, native name of San 
Salvador, or Watling Island, 
37 

Guanahatabibes, aboriginal tribe 
in Cuba, 25 

Guanica, 262, 276, 277, 284 

Guantanamo, Velasquez lands 
near, 56 ; American marines 
land there, 196 ; General Miles 
sails from, 284 



Guarico, Indian village in Haiti, 

39. 
Guarionex, cacique of Samana, 

45 

Guayama, 276, 284 

Guayanilla, 262 

Guiana, first colonised, 71 

Guichen, Count de, French ad- 
miral, 96 

Guines, town in Cuba, 156 

Gulf of Arrows, 40 

Gulf of Gonaive, 225 

Gulf of Mexico, how formed, 2 ; 
once a plain, 13 ; depth, 15 

Gulf of the Whale, 370 

Gulf Stream, origin of, 18 

Gustavia, 304 



H 



Haiti, island of, position and 
extent, 15, 225 ; political di- 
vision, 7 ; prehistoric relics, 
25 ; aboriginal inhabitants, 29; 
discovery by Columbus, 38 ; 
original division and chiefs, 
52 ; division between Spain 
and France, 10 1, 235 ; slavery 
in, 109, no ; size and contour, 
225, 226 ; coast line and har- 
bours, 226, 227 ; outlying isl- 
lands, 227 ; mountains, 227- 
229 ; rivers, 229, 230 ; lakes, 
230, 231 ; minerals, 231, 232 ; 
vegetation, 232; animals, 
232 ; climate, 232, 233 ; earth- 
quakes, 233 ; first settlements, 
233, 234 ; the Spanish and 
French colonies, 235, 236 ; ef- 
fect of the French Revolu- 
tion, 236-238 ; Spanish colony 
ceded to France, 238 ; under 
the rule of Toussaint L'Ouver- 
ture, 238, 239 ; conflict for 
independence, 239-242 ; estab- 
lishment of the Haitian Re- 
public, 242 

Haiti, Republic of, first estab- 
lished, 242 ; division and popu- 
lation, 243 ; revolutions and 



INDEX 



405 



Haiti, Republic of — Continued. 
insurrections, 243-245 ; gov- 
ernment, 246 ; character of 
the population, 246, 247 ; 
principal cities, 248, 249 ; for- 
eign trade, 249, 250 

Hamilton, Alexander, 316 

Hamilton, Lady, 316 

Harbour Island, 120 

Havana, destroyed by corsairs, 
64 ; captured by English, 95 ; 
founding of city, 142 ; taken 
by British, 144 ; description, 
153-156 

Hawkins, Sir John, as a slave- 
trader, 60, 65, 66 ; quarrel 
with Drake and death, 67 

Heinrich, Baldwin, 269 

Henri I., " King of the North." 

243 
Henry, General Guy V., 2S5 
Herrera, Spanish historian, 303 
Heureaux, Ulisses, 256, 257 
Hidalgos, Pass of, 43 
Hindu coolies in Trinidad, 378, 

379 

Hippolyte, Louis M o d e s t i n 
Florvil, president of Haiti, 245 

Hispaniola, Latinised form of 
Espanola, 39, 52 

Hobson, Lieutenant, 196 

Holguin, caves near, 131 ; the 
town, 161 

Holland, her West Indian pos- 
sessions, 102, 310, 311, 383- 
388. See Netherlands 

Homenage, Tower of, 253 

Honduras, Sea of, 15 

Honduras visited by Columbus, 
48 

Hood, Sir Samuel, 95, 98, 333 

Hopetown, 119 

Huevos, 372 

Huguenots, in Tobago, 369 

]Iugues, Victor, 323 

Humacao, 262, 277 

Hurricane, how caused, 20 ; ef- 
fects, 21 ; in Cuba, 140 ; in 
Puerto Rico, 265 ; in Antigua, 
309 ; in St, Lucia, 342 ; in St. 



Vincent, 345 ; in Barbados, 
366 



Ile-a-Vache, 227 

Inagua, Great and little, 4, 
122 

Indian, why applied in America, 
2 

Indies, the, origin and applica- 
tion of term, i, 2 

Inquisition, in Cuba, 148 ; ex- 
cluded from Trinidad, 377 

Insurrections, in Cuba, 177-181, 
183-19 1 ; of maroons in Ja- 
maica, 212-214 ; of negroes 
in Jamaica, 218 ; in Haiti, 
237-240 ; of slaves in Mar- 
tinique, 334 

Isabel a Segunda, 277 

Isabella, city of, founded by 
Columbus, 43, 45, 46 

Isabella, name given by Colum- 
bus to Crooked Island, 37 

Isabella, Queen of Spain, dis- 
approves of making slaves of 
natives of islands, 45 

Islas del Pasaje, 260 

" Isle of Giants," 386 

Isle of Pines, 129, 134, 151 



J 



Jackson, Colonel, plundered 
Santiago de la Vega, 209 

Jacmel, 227 

Jamaica, position and extent, 5, 
199 ; original inhabitants, 28 ; 
discovered by Columbus, 44 ; 
first settlement, 55 ; taken by 
the English, 79, 210 ; first 
maroons, 90 ; contemplated 
attack by De Grasse, 98 ; ab- 
sentee planters, 106 ; slavery 
in, 107 ; effect of emancipa- 
tion, 112, 216 ; coast line and 
bays, 199, 200 ; outlying 
islands, 201 ; mountains, 201, 
202 ; rivers, 202, 203 ; miner- 



4o6 



INDEX 



Jamaica — Continued. 

als, 203 ; vegetation, 203, 204 ; 
animals, 205, 206 ; climate, 
206-208 ; first settlement, 209; 
first colonists, 210 ; founding 
of Port Royal, 210 ; destruc- 
tion of Port Royal, 211 ; 
founding of Kingston, 211 ; 
attacked by the French, 211 ; 
insurrections of the maroons, 
212-215 ; the colonial govern- 
ment, 215 ; effect of Rodney's 
victory, 216 ; result of aboli- 
tion, 216, 217 ; insurrection 
of blacks, 217, 218 ; change 
in the government, 219 ; coun- 
ties and parishes, 219, 220 ; 
religion and education, 220, 
221 ; judiciary, 221 ; city 
of Kingston, 221, 222 ; other 
cities and towns, 222 ; popu- 
lation and industries, 222, 
223 ; material condition, 223, 
224 

Jatibonico, river in Cuba, 132 

Jeremie, 249 

Jervis, Sir John, English naval 
commander, 99, 323 

Jimaguayu, meeting - place of 
Cuban Assembly, 184 

Jordan, Gen. Thomas, 178 

Josephine, Empress, birthplace, 
336 

Juana, name given by Columbus 
to Cuba, 38, 143 

Junta, the Cuban, 183 



K 



"Key of the New World" 
(Havana), 154 

Kidd, Captain, 89 

Kingston, capital of Jamaica, 
199, 221, 222 

Kingstown, capital of St. Vin- 
cent, 345, 347 



La Brea, or La Braye, 374, 381 



Lacret, Cuban general, 185 

Lagon Bouffe, 373 

La Grange, General, 328 

La Playa, 262, 276 

Las Casas, Bartolome, "Apostle 
of the Indies," 57 ; condemns 
treatment of natives, 57, 58 ; 
among first colonists of Cuba, 
141 

Las Casas, Don Luis, governor- 
general of Cuba, 144 

Las Guasimas, 196 

Las Islas de Arenas, 38 

Laws of the Indies, 145 

Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, consul- 
general at Havana, 194 ; mili- 
tary commander, 197 

Leeward Islands, origin and 
application of the term, 6, 7 ; 
288, 385 

Leeward Islands Colony, 290-293 

Leclerc, General, 239, 240 

Legitime, General, 245 

Leogahe, 248 

Leon, Ponce de, lands on Puerto 
Rico, 54 ; founds San Juan, 
54, 55, 267 ; invades Florida, 
268 

" Les Amis des Noirs," 236 

Lesser Antilles, 4 ; their extent, 
6 ; area and population, 12 ; 
geological structure, 16 ; con- 
tests for possession, 92-102 ; 
application of the term, 287 

Liamuiga, Carib name of St. 
Kitt's, 312 

Libano, Monte, caves of, in 
Cuba, 131 

Liberte, 249 

Liguanea, plain of, 203 

" Little Venice," 371 

" Llave del Nuevo Mundo," 154 

L'Olive, French adventurer, 77, 
322 

Lolonois, or I'Olonnois, French 
buccaneer, 84 

Long Island, discovery, 4 ; relics 
of aborigines, 27 ; Fernandina 
of Columbus, 37 ; description, 



INDEX 



407 



Lopez, Narciso, 174, 175 
Louisiana, as Spanish posses- 
sion, 72 
L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 238-240 
Lucayan Islands, see Bahamas 
Lucayos, or Yucayos, natives of 
Bahamas, 26 ; kidnapped for 
slaves, 54 
Ludlow, Gen. Wm., 197 
Luquillo, 262 



M 



Maceo, Antonio, 183-189 

Maceo, Jose, 183-188 

Macias, Governor-General, 285 

McKinley, President, reference 
to Cuba in annual message, 
192 ; special message on Cuba, 
194 

Madanino, island of Amazons, 
40 

Madiana, native name of Mar- 
tinique, 330 

Maine, the, U. S. battle-ship, 

193 
Maintenon, Madame de, 337 
Maisi, Cape, 27, 38 
Manigat, General, 245 
Manzanillo, bay, 226 
Manzanillo, city in Cuba, 161, 

178 
Margarita, island, discovered, 

46 ; description, 383, 384 
Margarita, Pedro, 43, 44 
Marie Galante, situation and ex- 
tent, 9 : origin of name, 41 ; 

description, 322 
Mariel, port of Cuba, 156 
Marigot, 304 
Mariguana, 4, 122 
Marin, Sabas, Spanish general in 

Cuba, 186, 187 
Marlborough, Earl of, 359 
Marooning, 90 
Maroons, origin in Jamaica, 89, 

90, 212 ; insurrections of , 212- 

215 
Martha Brae River, 203 
Marti, Jose, 183, 184 



Martinique, situation and extent, 
10 ; discovery, 48 ; taken by 
the French, 77 ; contests over, 
92, 95, 99 ; description, 330- 
332 ; history, 333, 334 ; indus- 
trial condition, 334, 335 ; gov- 
ernment, 336 

Martyr d'Anghiera, Peter, 4 

Masso, Bartolome, 185, 191, 198 

Matanzas, caves, 131 

Matanzas, city, 156 

Matanzas, Pan de, 130 

Matanzas, province, 152 ; rav- 
aged by insurgents, 186 

Matthew Town, 122 

Mayaguez, 262, 276, 285 

Mayari, river in Cuba, 132 

Mayas, aborigines of Yucatan, 
27 

Maynard, Lieutenant, captures 
the pirate " Blackbeard," 87 

Mendez, Diego, 49 

Merrimac, the, U. S. naval ves- 
sel, 195 

Mexico, as Spanish possession, 
72 

Mexico, Gulf of, 2, 13, 15 

Miles, General Nelson A., takes 
Puerto Rico, 284, 285 

Mississippi River, effect in pro- 
ducing Gulf Stream, 18 

Moca, 263 

Mole St. Nicholas, 38, 225, 248 

Mona, island off Puerto Rico, 
44, 260 

Mona Passage, 5, 16, 259 

Monkey Hill, 314 

Mono, island off Trinidad, 372 

Montagu, Lord, 346 

Montbar, French buccaneer, 84 

Monte Cristi, mountain in Haiti, 
40, 43 ; mountain range, 228 

Monte Cristi, province of, 252 

Montego Bay, 200, 222 

" Montpelier of the West," 317 

Montserrat, island of, situation 
and extent, g ; discovery and 
name, 41 ; taken by English, 
75 ; captured by French, 93 ; 
part of Leeward Islands Col- 



408 



INDEX 



Montserrat — Continued. 

ony, 290-292 ; description, 
316, 317 

Montserrat, town in Trinidad, 
381 

Moore, Admiral, 323 

Moore, Sir John, 342 

Morant Keys, 201 

Morgan, Sir Henry, buccaneer, 
85 

Morne des Sauteurs, 351 

Morne du Diamant, 331, 333 

Morne Fortunee, 341 

Morne Garou, 343 

Morro Castle, at Havana, 143 ; 
at Santiago de Cuba, 160 ; at 
San Juan, 273 

Mountains, of Cuba, 129 ; of Ja- 
maica, 201, 202 ; of Haili, 
227-229 ; of Puerto Rico, 261 

Mount Diablotin, 325 

Mount Hillably, 356 

Mount Maitland, 350 

Mount Misery, 314 

Mount Naparima, 372 

Mount Pelee, 331 

Mount Tamana, 372 



N 



Naguabo, 262, 277 

Napoleon, sends expedition to 
Haiti, 239 ; re-establishes slav- 
ery in Guadeloupe, 323 

NarroM^s, the, 315 

Nassau, 3 ; first settled, 77 ; de- 
scription, 119 ; rendezvous of 
blockade-runners, 125 

Natividad, or Navidad, La, 
founded by Columbus, 39 ; de- 
stroyed, 42 

Navios, 372 

Nelson, Lord, hunting the 
French fleet, 100 ; marriage in 
Nevis, 316 ; at Barbados, 361 ; 
at Trinidad, 378 

Netherlands, contests title of 
Spai^i to islands, 71, 92 ; share 
in St. Martin, 303 ; Saba and 
St. Eustatius, 310, 311 ; Cura- 



9ao, Buen Aire, and Aruba, 
383-388 

Nevis, situation and extent, 9 ; 
first settled, 74 ; part of Lee- 
ward Islands Colony, 290 ; de- 
scription, 315, 316 

New Providence, 3 ; first settle- 
ment, 76 ; description, 119 

Neyba, Bay of, 226 

Nieves, 315 

AHna, a caravel of Columbus, 
35 ; returns to Spain, 45 

Nisbet, Fanny, 316 

Nissage-Saget, General, 244 

Nombre de Dios, attacked by 
Drake, 66, 68 

Nueva Esparta, 384 

Nuevitas, 152, 159 



Oberzijde, 386 

Ocampo, explores Cuban coast, 
141 

Ocoa, Bay of, 226 

Oge, Vincent, 237 

Ojeda, Don Alonzo de, an offi- 
cer of Columbus, 44, 45, 47 ; 
accompanies Vespucci, 371 ; 
discovers Curasao, 386 

Old Harbour, 200 

Olive Blossom^ first English ves- 
sel to visit Barbados, 78, 358 

Orangetovvn, 311 

Organos, mountains in Cuba, 
130 

Orinoco, river, effect upon Trini- 
dad, 373 

Orinoco, valley, abode of Ara- 
waks and Caribs, 25 ; limit of 
Spanish Main, 60 

" Ostend Manifesto," 176 

Ovando, Nicolas de, governor 
of Espanola, 47, 49 

Ozama, river in Santo Domingo, 
47, 230 



Pacific Ocean, connection with 
Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean 



INDEX 



409 



Pacific Ocean — Continued. 1 

Sea, 13 ; Drake's cruise upon, j 

65 i 

Palma, Tomas Estrada, 185 

Palos, Columbus starts from, , 
35 ; returns to, 40 

Panama, burnt by buccaneers, 85 ! 

Pando, Spanish general, 182, 186 I 

Paradise Peak, 303 : 

Paria, Gulf of, Columbus enters, | 
46, 370 ; description, 380 j 

Paris, treaty of, g5, 323 

"Pearl of the Antilles," origin j 
of the term, 136 [ 

Pedro Bank, 201 

Penn, Admiral, and Venables, j 
capture Jamaica, 79, 210, 360 

" Peter the Great," sobriquet of | 
buccaneer, 84 

Petion, General, 241 

Petit Anse, present site of Co- 
lumbus's Navidad, 40 

Petit Goave, 234 

Philipsburg, 304 

Pico Tarquino, mountain in 
Cuba, 129 

Picton, Lieut. -Colonel, governor 
of Trinidad, 378 

Pinar del Rio, city of Cuba, 156 

Pinar del Rio, province of Cuba, 
151 ; occupied by insurgents, 
186-188 

Pinta, one of Columbus's cara- 
vels, 35 

Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, com- 
panion of Columbus on his 
first voyage, 36, 38, 40 

Pinzon, Vicente Yanez, compan- 
ion of Columbus on his first 
voyage, 36 

Piracy, beginning of, in West 
Indies, 61, 63-68 ; after the 
buccaneering period, 87-89 

Piton Vauclin, 331 

"Pitons, The," 339 

Pitt's Town, 122 

Plantain Garden River, 203 

Plymouth, 317 

Pococke, Admiral, lays siege to 
Havana, 95 



Pointe-a-Pitre, 321, 324 

Point Galera, 372 

Polk, President, proposes to pur- 
chase Cuba, 174 

Ponce, 276 

Pope Alexander VI., bull divid- 
ing possessions of Spain and 
Portugal, 51, 71 

Port-a-la-Paix, 249 

Port Antonio, 200, 222 

Port-au-Prince, Bay of, 225 

Port-au-Prince, city, 233, 238, 
248 

Port Maria, 200, 222 ; maroon 
insurrection near, 213 

Port Morant, 200, 222 

Port Mula, 277 

Porto Bello, or Puerto Bello, 
attacked by buccaneers, 85 

Port of Spain, 380, 381 

Port Royal, headquarters of buc- 
caneers, 83, 200, 210 ; de- 
stroyed by earthquake, 210, 
211 

Portsmouth, 327 

Portugal, title to eastern lands, 
51 ; engages in slave trade, 
103 

Portuguese, in St. Vincent, 347 

Potrerillo, mountain in Cuba, 
130 

Prevost, Sir George, 328 

Prince Rupert's Bay, 324, 327 

Prince's Town, 381 

Privateering, 63-70, 85 

Providence Channel, 116, 119 

Pueblo Nuevo, 1 56 

Puerta de Tierra, 275 

Puerto Bello, or Porto Bello, 
takes the place of Nombre 
de Dios, 68 ; attacked by 
buccaneers, 85 

Puerto Plata, city, 226, 255 

Puerto Plata, province, 252 

Puerto Principe, city of Cuba, 
149 

Puerto Principe, province of 
Cuba, 152 

Puerto Rico, position and extent, 
5 ; political connection, 7 ; ab- 



4IO 



INDEX 



Puerto Rico — Continued. 

original inhabitants, 30 ; dis- 
covered by Columbus, 42, 266 ; 
Ponce de Leon takes posses- 
sion, 54, 55, 267 ; becomes 
territory of the United States, 
102 ; slavery in, 108, 113 ; 
physical characteristics, 259- 
265 ; coast line, 260 ; outlying 
islands, 260, 261 ; character of 
surface, 261 ; rivers, 261, 262 ; 
minerals, 262, 263 ; vegetation, 
263 ; animals, 263, 264 ; soil 
and climate, 264, 265 ; first 
settlement, 267 ; origin of the 
name, 267 ; fate of the first 
colony, 26S ; desolate condi- 
tion, 269 ; rapid development, 
269, 270 ; government, 270, 
271 ; departments, 271, 272 ; 
ports and towns, 273-277 ; in- 
dustrial condition, 278-280 ; 
railroads and telegraph, 280, 
281 ; commercial condition. 
281 ; social condition, 281, 
282; archaeology, 282, 283; 
United States takes possession, 
284-286 

Puits Bouillants, 319 

Punta Brava, 189 

Q 
Quisqueya, native name of part 
of Haiti, 39 



Ragged Islands, 38, 123 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, captures 

San Josef, Trinidad, 70, 376 
" Reconcentrados " in Cuba, 190 
Redonda, 316 

Regla, suburb of Havana, 156 
Relics of aborigines, 27, 30, 33, 

387 . 
Remedies, caves, 131 ; the city, 

141, 158 
Revolution, attempts at, in Cuba, 

172-181 ; in Haiti, 243-245 ; 

in Santo Domingo, 255-257 



Rio Cauto, river in Cuba, 131 
Rio del Oro, name given by Co- 
lumbus to the Yaqui River, 40, 
43 
Rio Grande de Loiza, 283 
' ' Road of the Virgins," 294 
Roberts, Bartholomew, his rules 

of piracy, 88 
Rochambeau, General, 240 
Rodney, Admiral, first in West 
Indies, 95 ; takes St. Eusta- 
tius, 96 ; battle with French 
fleet off Dominica, 98, 333 ; 
statue at Kingston, 216 
Roldan, 46 
Roseau, 325, 327 
Rovers and corsairs, 61, 63-68 
Rum Cay, 4, 37, 122 . 
Ryswick, treaty of, ends bucca- 
neering, 86 ; effect upon pos- 
session of islands, 94, loi, 235, 
313 



Saba, situation and extent, 9 ; 
taken by the Dutch, 75 ; de- 
scription, 310, 311 

Sagasta, Praxedes Mateo, 190 

Sagua la Grande, city in Cuba, 
158 

Sagua la Grande, river in Cuba, 

131 

St. Ann's Bay, refuge of Colum- 
bus, 49, 200 

St. Bartholomew, or St. Bart, 
situation and extent, 8 ; first 
occupied, 76 ; description and 
history, 305 

St. Christopher, or St. Kitt's, 
situation and extent, 9 ; origin 
of name, 41 ; first settlement, 
74 ; early contests for, 92, 94 ; 
part of Leeward Islands Colony, 
290-292 ; description and his- 
tory, 312-315 

St. Domingue, French colony in 
Haiti, 235 

St. Eustatius, situation and ex- 
tent, 9 ; taken by the Dutch, 



INDEX 



411 



St. Eustatius — Continued. 

75 ; seized by French and re- 
stored to Holland, 94 ; cap- 
tured by Rodney, 96 ; descrip- 
tion, 311 

St. George's, 352 

St. John, city, 290, 307, 308 

St. John, island, situation and 
extent, 8 ; description, 293, 298 

St, Josef, see San Josef 

St. Kitt's, see St. Christopher 

St. Laurent, Roume de, 376 

St. Louis, 227 

St. Lucia, situation and extent, 
10 ; discovery, 48 ; first settled, 
78 ; contests over, 95-99 ; part 
of the Windward Islands Col- 
ony, 288, 289; description, 338- 
340 ; history, 340-342 ; hurri- 
cane, 342 

St. Marc, 248 

St. Martin, situation and extent, 
8 ; discovery, 42 ; first occu- 
pied, 76, 93 ; description and 
history, 303, 304 

St. Nicholas, Cape (Mole), 38, 
225, 248 

St. Pierre, 331, 332, 336 

St. Thomas, situation and extent, 
8 ; comes into possession of 
Denmark, 80 ; description, 
293-298 

St. Ursula, Virgin Islands named 
for, 7, 42, 293 

St. Vincent, situation and extent, 
10 ; discovery, 46 ; first occu- 
pied, 78 ; contests over, 95- 
99 ; part of the Windward 
Islands Colony, 288, 289 ; de- 
scription, 342-345 ; volcanic 
eruption, 343, 344 ; hurricane 
of 1898, 345 ; history and peo- 
ple, 346 ; capital, 347 

Saintes, Les, situation and ex- 
tent, 9 ; description, 322 

Salnave, Sylvestre, 244 

Salomon, president of Haiti, 244 

Salt Key Bank, 123 

Sam, General Tiresias Augustin 
Simon, president of Haiti, 245 



Samana, bay, visited by Colum- 
bus, 40, 226 

Samana, province of, 252 

Samana, tribe in Haiti, 40 

Sampson, \V. T., U. S. naval 
officer, 195 

San Antonio, cape, 128, 130, 141 

San Antonio, river, 132 

San Cristobal, town in Cuba, 142 

San Diego, river in Cuba, 133 

San Diego, town in Cuba, 156 

San Domingo Improvement Com- 
pany, 258 

San Fernando, 381 

San German, 276, 285 

San Josef, in Trinidad, captured 
by Sir W. Raleigh, 70, 376 

San Juan Bautista, name given 
by Columbus to Puerto Rico, 
42, 266 

San Juan, Cuba, battle at, 196 

San Juan de los Remedios, see 
Remedios 

San Juan de Maguana, 252 

San Juan de Puerto Rico, found- 
ed, 54, 267 ; attacked by Drake, 
67, 268 ; taken by Dutch ad- 
miral, 73, 269 ; attacked by the 
Duke of Cumberland, 268 ; 
description, 273, 274 

San Lorenzo, 255, 277 

San Lucar, Columbus sails from, 
46 

San Martin, see St. Martin 

San Nicolas, see St. Nicholas 

San Pedro, 252 

San Salvador, first island dis- 
covered by Columbus, 37, 122 

Santa Ana Bay, 386 

Santa Barbara, 252 

Santa Clara, city in Cuba, 158 

Santa Clara, Count of, governor- 
general of Cuba, 145 

Santa Clara, province of Cuba, 
152 

Santa Cruz, situation and ex- 
tent, 7 ; discovery, 42 ; revolt 
of slaves, iii ; description, 
299-301 

Santa Cruz del Seybo, 252 



412 



INDEX 



Santa Cruz del Sur, Cuban As- 
sembly at, 198 

Santa Gloria, name given by 
Columbus to St. Ann Bay, 49 

Santa Maria, one of the vessels 
of Columbus, 35 ; wrecked, 

39 

Santa Maria de la Concepcion, 
name given by Columbus to 
Rum Cay, 37 

Santana, General Pedro, 255 

Santiago, name given by Colum- 
bus to Jamaica, 44 ; at one 
time name of Cuba, 143 

Santiago de Cuba, city, Cortez 
sails from, 56 ; corsair enters 
harbour, 64 ; founding of, 141 ; 
description of, 159-161 

Santiago de Cuba, province, 153 

Santiago de la Vega, original 
name of Spanish Town, 56, 
200, 209 ; attacked by Eng- 
lish, 93 ; plundered by the 
English, 209 

Santiago de los Caballeros, 252 

Santocildes, Spanish general, 
185 

Santo Domingo, city, founded, 
46, 47 ; capital of Espanola, 
52 ; attacked by Drake, 67, 
234 ; Cuban conspirators in, 
183 ; description of, 253, 254 

Santo Domingo, province of, 
252 

Santo Domingo, Republic of, 
area and population, 251; prov- 
inces and districts, 252 ; charac- 
ter of the five provinces, 252, 
253 ; the capital city, 253, 254; 
character of the northern dis- 
tricts, 254, 255; history, 255, 
256 ; government, 257 ; religion 
and education, 257 ; industrial 
and commercial condition, 257, 
258 

Santo Domingo, Spanish colony 
in Haiti, 235 

Santo Espiritu, 141, 158 

Santo Tomas de Yanico, 43 

Saona, island, 227 



Sargasso Sea, 36 

Savana la Mar, 200 

Schley, W. S., U. S. naval 
officer, 195, 285 

Schottegat, the, 386 

Schwan, General, 284, 285 

"Scotland," in Barbados, 355 

Serpent Mouth, 370 

" Seven Years' War," effect in 
West Indies, 94 ; capture of 
Havana during, 144 

Sevilla, in Cuba, 196 

Sevilla d' Oro, first town in 
Jamaica, 55, 209 

Seville, Columbus goes to, 49 

Seybo, province of, 254 

Shafter, Gen. Wm. R., 196 

Shirley, Sir A., attack upon 
Jamaica, 209 

Siboney, landing-place of Ameri- 
can troops, 196 

Sickles, General, U. S. Minister 
at Madrid, 180 

Sierra Cayey, 261 

Sierra de Cibao, 227 

Sierra del Cobre, 129 

Sierra Maestra, 129 

Simpson's Lagoon, 304 

Slavery, first introduced, 59, 60 ; 
character and history, 103- 
114; in Jamaica, 216, 218; 
in Haiti, 234, 235, 238 ; in 
Puerto Rico, 269 ; in Bar- 
bados, 361, 362 ; in Tobago, 

369 
Slave trade, beginning of, 59- 

61 ; history of, 103-109 ; in 

Jamaica, 216 ; in Barbados, 360 
Soles de Bolivar, 173 
Sombrero, 8, 302 
Soto, Hernando de, 143 
Soufriere, or Solfatara, in Mont- 

serrat, 317 ; in Gaudeloupe, 

333, 334 ; in St. Lucia, 339 ; 

in St." Vincent, 343 
Soulouque, General Faustin, 244 
South America, islands attached 

to, II ; immigrants from, 25 ; 

slighted by Columbus, 371 ; 

observed by Y'espucci, 371 



INDEX 



413 



Spain, title to western lands, 51 ; 
colonies at end of sixteenth 
century, 6g ; rights in West 
Indies contested, 71 ; exclu- 
sive claims abandoned, 92 ; 
contests with England, France, 
and Holland, 92-102 ; loss of 
colonies, loi ; effect of trade 
policy in Cuba, 163 ; at war 
with United States, 195 ; end 
of sovereignty in western 
hemisphere, 198 ; evacuates 
Puerto Rico, 285 

" Spanish Main," 60, 104 

Spanish Town, 222 

Sugar-cane, introduced, by Co- 
lumbus, 104 ; effect upon 
slavery, 105 ; cultivation in 
Cuba, 144 



Teach, Edward, the pirate 

" Blackbeard," 87, 125, 384 
Testigos, 384 

Thelemaque, General, 245 
Thomas in the Vale, 203 
Tierra Adentro, 140 
Tison, Thomas, English trader. 

Tobacco, first cultivation, 105 ; 

in Cuba, 144 
Tobago, position, 6 ; extent, 11 ; 
first occupation, 78 ; ceded to 
Great Britain, 95 ; part of 
Windward Islands Colony, 
288, 289 ; description, 367, 
368 ; history, 368, 369 ; Cru- 
soe's island, 369 
Toledo, Don Frederic de, 313 
"Tongue of the Ocean," 4, 

116 
Tordesillas, treaty of, 51, 71 
Tornado^ Spanish cruiser, 179 
Tortola, one of Virgin Islands, 
8 ; first occupied, 76 ; descrip- 
tion, 294 
Tortuga, near Haiti, seized by 
refugees, 75 ; headquarters of 
buccaneers, 82 ; taken by 



French, 83 ; position and ex- 
tent, 227 

Tortuga, near Margarita, 384 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, Fran- 
9ois Dominique, 238-240 

Trade-winds, how caused, 19 ; 
general effect, 20 

Trelawney, Governor, treaty 
with the maroons, 212 

Trelawney Reservation, 213 

Trelawney Town, 213 

Trinidad, city in Cuba, 141, 158 

Trinidad, island, position, 6 ; ex- 
tent, II ; discovery and name, 
46, 370 ; visited by Raleigh, 
70, 376 ; first settled, 79 ; de- 
scription, 370-375 ; history, 
376-378 ; people and products, 
378, 379 ; ports and towns, 
380, 381 ; government, 382 

Trocha, crossing Cuba, 130, 152; 
military line, Jucaro — Moron, 
185 ; Mariel — Majana, 187 

Trois Islets, 337 

Tucutche, mountain in Trinidad, 
372 

Turks, islands, situation, 4 ; 
relics of aborigines, 27 ; de- 
scription, 122, 123 ; political 
connection, 127 

Twelve League Keys, 134 



U 



United States, first possession in 
West Indies, loi ; at war with 
Spain, 195 ; takes possession 
of Cuba, 198 ; takes posses- 
sion of Puerto Rico, 286 

Utrecht, treaty of, 94, 313 

Utuado, 263, 275 



Vale of Bath, 203 
Valladolid, church in, 308 
Valmaseda, Count, Spanish gen- 
eral in Cuba, 178 
Van Home, buccaneer, 86 
Vega Real, 52, 229 ; description, 
254, 255 



414 



INDEX 



Velasques, Diego, first colonises 
Cuba, 56, 141, 161 

Venables, Admiral, with Penn, 
captures Jamaica, 79, 210, 360 

Venezuela, earthquake, 343, 344 ; 
named hy Vespucci, 371 ; isl- 
ands off, 383-388 

Vera Cruz, attacked by bucca- 
neers, 86 

Veragua, 48 

Versailles, treaty of, 99, 323, 328, 

369 

Versalles, suburb of Matanzas, 
156 

Vespucci, Amerigo, 371 

Vieques, 6, 260, 272, 277 

Villalobos, Marceto, 384 

Ville de Paris, flagship of Count 
de Grasse, 98 

Virgin Gorda, one of Virgin 
Islands, 8, 294 

Virgin Islands, situation, 6 ; dis- 
covery and name, 42 ; resort 
of buccaneers, 84 ; description 
287, 293-295 ; part of Lee- 
ward Islands Colony, 290-292 

" Virginius affair," the, 179, 180 

Virgin Passage, 277, 287 

Volcanic eruption, 343 

Volunteers, Cuban, 177 

Vuelta Abajo, 140 

Vuelta Arriba, 140 

W 

Walpole, General, 214 

War, effect of, upon the posses- 
sion of islands, 92-102 ; that 
between the United States and 
Spain, 194-197 

Warner, Sir Thomas, colonises 
islands, 74, 75, 308, 312 

Watling Island, position, 3 ; San 
Salvador of Columbus, 37 ; 
description, 122 

Watts, governor of St. Kitt's, 313 

West End, 300, 301 

West Indies, origin of the term, 
2; area and population, 12; 
process of discovery, 35-50 ; 



first introduction of African 
slaves, 60 ; first English settle- 
ment, 74 ; buccaneering and 
piracy in, 86 ; Spain's claims 
contested, 92 ; final division, 
loi, 102 ; slavery in, 103-114 ; 
enigma of their future destiny, 
389-396 

West Mountain, 295 

Weyler, General, governor-gen- 
eral of Cuba, 187-190 

Willemstad, 386 

Willoughby, Lord, receives grant 
from Charles II., 75 ; gov- 
ernor of Barbados, 93, 360 ; 
grantee of Antigua, 309 

Wilson, General, 285 

Windward Islands, origin and 
application of term, 6, 7, 288 

Windward Islands Colony, 288, 
289 ; connection of Tobago 
with, 369 

Windward Passage, 5, 16 

Wood, General Leonard, 197 



Xaragua, 52 
Xaymaca, 44 



Yaqui, river in Haiti, 52, 229 
Vara, town in Cuba, 178 
Yauco, town in Puerto Rico, 

276, 284 
Yucatan, 2 ; original inhabitants, 

27 ; visited by Columbus, 48 
Yucatan Channel, 15 
Yucayos, or Lucayos, character- 
istics, 26 
Yumuri, river in Cuba, 156 
Yunque, El, de Baracoa, 130 
Yunque, El, de Luquillo, 261 



Zapata, marsh in Cuba, 152 

Zatucha, Dr., 189 

Zeta, name given by Columbus 

to South American coast, 371 
Zocapa, fortress, 160 



Ji Selection from the 
Catalogue of 

C. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Oomplete Catalo^vies sent 
on application 



*TN,A. jy^^*w3K\Lx^a '\3f^ 



The Story of the Nations 



In the story form the current of each National life 
is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and note- 
worthy periods and episodes are presented for the 
reader in their philosophical relation to each other 
as well as to universal history. 

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes 
to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring 
them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, 
and struggled — as they studied and wrote, and as 
they amused themselves. In carrying out this plan, 
the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, 
will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully 
distinguished from the actual history, so far as the 
labors of the accepted historical authorities have 
resulted in definite conclusions. 

The subjects of the different volumes have been 
planned to cover connecting and, as. far as possible, 
consecutive epochs or periods, so that the set when 
completed will present in a comprehensive narrative 
the chief events in the great Story of the Nations; 
but it is, of course, not always practicable to issue 
the several volumes in their chronological order. 

For list of volumes see next page. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. 

ROME. Arthur Gilman. 

THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hos- 
mer. 

CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 

NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen. 

SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan 
Hale. 

HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 

CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. 

Church. 

THE SARACENS. Arthur Gil- 
man. 

THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley 
Lane-Poole. 

THE NORMANS. Sarah Ome 
Jewett. 

PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 

ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. 
Rawlinson. 

ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. 
J. P. Mahaffy. 

ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 

IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 

TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PER- 
SIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

MEDIEVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gus- 
tave Masson. 

HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold 

Rogers. 

MEXICO. Susan Hale. 

PHOENICIA. George Rawlinson. 



THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen 

Zimrnem. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred 

J. Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. 

Stanley Lane-Poole. 
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. 

D. Morrison. 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and 

Mrs. A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. 

W. C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. Freeman. 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. Bella 

Duffy. 
POLAND. W. R. Morfill. 
PARTHIA. Geo. RawUnson. 
JAPAN. David Murray. 
THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERS 

OF SPAIN. H.E. Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tregar- 

then. 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M, 

Theal. 
VENICE. Alethea Weil. 
THE CRUSADES. T. S. Archer 

and C. L. Kingsfcrd. 
VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA. C. E. Maurice. 
CANADA. J. G, Bourinot. 
THE BALKAN STATES. William 

MiUer, 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R. 

"W. Frazer. 
MODERN FRANCE. Andr(? Le Bon. 
THE BRITISH EMPIRE. Alfred 

T. Story. Two vols. 
THE FRANKS. Lewis Sergeant. 
THE WEST INDIES. Amos K. 

Fiske. 
THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 

Justin McCarthy, M.P. Two 

vols. 
AUSTRIA. Sidney Whitman. 
CHINA. Robt. K. Douglass. 
MODERN SPAIN. Major Martin 

A. S. Hume. 
MODERN ITALY. Pietro Orsi. 
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. 

Helen A. Smith. Two vols. 
WALES AND CORNWALL. Owen 

M. Edwards. Net $1.35. 
MEDIEVAL ROME. Wm. Miller, 



THE PAPAL MONARCHY, Wm. 

Barry. 
MEDIEVAL INDIA. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
BUDDHIST INDIA. T. W. Rhys 

Davids. 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN RE 

PUBLICS. Thomas C. Daw = 

son. Two vols. 
PARLIAMENTARY ENGLAND. 

Edward Jenks. 
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND. Mary 

Bateson. 
THE UNITED STATES. Edward 

Earle Sparks. Two vols. 
ENGLAND, THE COMING OP 

PARLIAMENT. L. Cecil Jane. 
GREECE— EARLIEST TIMES— 

A.D. 14. E. S. Shuckburgh. 
ROMAN EMPIRE, B.C. 29-A.D 

476. N. Stuart Jones. 



Heroes of the Nations 



A Series of biographical studies of the lives and 
work of a number of representative historical char- 
acters about whom have gathered the great traditions 
of the Nations to which they belonged, and who have 
been accepted, in many instances, as types of the 
several National ideals. With the life of each typical 
character will be presented a picture of the National 
conditions surrounding him during his career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who are 
recognized authorities on their several subjects, and, 
while thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present 
picturesque and dramatic ''stories" of the Men and 
of the events connected with them. 

To the Life of each "Hero" will be given one duo- 
decimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, 
provided with maps and adequately illustrated ac- 
cording to the special requirements of the several 
subjects. 

For iull list of volumes see next page. 



I 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS 



NELSON. By W. Clark Russell. 
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. By C. 

R. L. Fletcher. 
PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott. 
THEODORIC THE GOTH. By 

Thomas Hodgkin. 
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. By H. R. 

Fox-Boume. 
JULIUS C^SAR. By W. Warde 

Fowler. 
WYCLIF. By Lewis Sergeant. 
NAPOLEON. By W. O'Connor 

Morris. 
HENRY OF NAVARRE. By P. 

F. Willert. 
CICERO. By J. L. Strachan- 

Davidson. 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Noah 

Brooks. 
PRINCE HENRY (OF PORTU- 
GAL) THE NAVIGATOR. 

By C. R. Beazley. 
JULIAN THE PHILOSOPHER. 

By Alice Gardner. 
LOUIS XIV. By Arthur Hassall. 
CHARLES XII. By R. Nisbet 

Bain. 
LORENZO DE* MEDICI. By 

Edward Armstrong. 
JEANNE D'ARC. By Mrs. Oli- 

phant. 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By 

Washington Irving. 



R OBERT THE BRUCE. By Sir 

Herbert Maxwell. 
HANNIBAL. By W. O'Connor 

Morris. 
ULYSSES S. GRANT. By "William 

Conant Church. 
ROBERT E. LEE. By Henry 

Alexander White. 
THE CID CAMPEADOR. By H. 

Butler Clarke. 
SALADIN. By Stanley Lane 

Poole. 
BISMARCK. By J. W. Headlam. 
ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By 

Benjamin I. "Wheeler. 
CHARLEMAGNE. By H. W. C. 

Davis. 
OLIVER CROMWELL. By 

Charles Firth. 
RICHELIEU. By James B.Perkins. 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. By Rob- 
ert Dunlop. 
SAINT LOUIS (Louis IX. of 

France). By Frederick Perry. 
LORD CHATHAM. By Walford 

Davis Green. 
OWEN GLYNDWR. By Arthur 

G. Bradley. 
HENRY V. By Charles L. Kings- 
ford. 
EDWARD I. By Edward Jenks. 
AUGUSTUS C^SAR. By J. B, 

Firth. 



\y- 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS 



FREDERICK THE GREAT. By 

W, F. Reddaway. 
WELLINGrTON. By W. O'Connor 

Morris. 
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 

By J. B. Smith. 
MOHAMMED. By D.S.Margoliouth 
CHARLES THE BOLD. By Ruth 

Putnam. 



WASHINGTON. By J. A.Harrison. 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 
By F. M. Stenton. 

FERNANDO CORTES. By F. A. 

MacNutt. 
WILLIAM THE SILENT. By 

Ruth Putnam. 



Other volumes in preparation are 

By Ernest F. Hen- 



BLUCHER 

derson. 
MARLBOROUGH. By C. T. At 

kinson. 

MOLTKE. By James Warden. 



ALFRED THE GREAT. By Ber- 

tha Lees. 
GREGORY VIJ. By F. Urquhart. 
JUDAS MACCABEUS. By Israel 

Abrahams. 
FREDERICK II. By A. L. Smith. 



New York— G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. Publishers— Londca 



LLmc'3^ 



